Now is the Time

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. ~Saint Augustine

Time has been on my mind this week. How do you define time when even Augustine can't explain it? I can't wrap my arms around it or put it in a box. Oh I might think I have it controlled on my watch or wall clock or cell phone but not really. Time is not contained in such man made things. Time seems to rule my life: I set up appointments; I drive according to the speed limit (most of the time) of miles per hour; I plan for a wedding a week from Saturday; School is set up in quarter or semesters of yearly time; We celebrate the coming of a new year January 1st; My son's 27th birthday is next Saturday; We read Time Magazine; I lost three hours of time on my flight to Toledo (how do you lose 3 hours...where does it go?); movies like The Time Travelers Wife intrigue our curiosity to travel through time; and the sun come up this morning to start a new day as God's masterclock.

We are controlled, pressured and consumed by time.

I can't see time itself but I can see the effects of time. When I traveled back to Toledo to visit my mother this week everything looks different. Over the last month people I've known for years and years have entered my life once again and I'm amazed how different they look. We tend to think of old friends the way they were and forget all that has transpired in their lives to change them. One friend of mine had married and produced a family of five children since I last talked with him...where did all the time go? Of course, I don't feel any different but time has also taken it's toll on me as well. All I have to do is look into the mirror and I see the effects of time - some good, some not so good!

Why is it that we spend so much "time" remembering the past and planning and hoping for the future that the present dissapates from our reality? Patrick Swayze died yesterday as a 57 year old still young in years ( at least I think so). More than ever I'm convinced that life is a blip and the decades that seem like eternity when I was a kid speed by faster than a freight train nowadays. We miss out on so much caught up in the speed between the past and future.

Live like a child or saint in the immediacy of the here and now. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's words should be a prompt reminder not to focus so much on the past and future of time because if we do we will miss out on all the wonders of the now. As a child living in the now we are ever expecting and excited...as a saint we live through the pain, hurt and despair.

And it's in the now that God is working in our lives both as child and saint.

Now is the "time"...look for Him.