Time

Last night, I was surprised by an answer to a question I wasn't asking.

The question is related to questions I ask, but I don't think I've ever really considered it before.

Here it is:

Why was time created?

The answer was a profound one, one I found a little reductive
(perhaps because I was being too literal)
and kind of jarring.

I normally think of time as a mystery.
What is it? I don't know.
But we seem to be passing through it,
or maybe it's more like we're caught in it.

Plus, it's so very important to the experience of music.
Really, it's important to the experience of anything,
at least for those of us who live on planets.

It seems we need to measure it, to mark it off in manageable segments.

Here's the answer to the question, compliments of Thomas Keating.

Time was created so that we might learn to wait.
In waiting, we develop a more right relationship to God through faith alone.

On some level, I like this,
and I don't mean to reject the deeply rooted ideas of a teacher of Keating's stature.

But in spite of its profundity and truth,
and even its pointing to mystery,
it feels a little mechanistic to me.

Of course I've taken his statement out of context - a context I don't know a lot about - and I readily acknowledge that what he says here actually makes sense to me. I'm also glad he raised the question for me as I think it will become an abiding aspect of my discourse with others.

If I were to attempt to answer the question, I would begin like this:

It's hard to imagine not existing in time. As a creature who lives in time, I don't know how to picture life that does not consist of moment after moment. We hear of walking the streets of gold in eternity, and that sounds like an experience of time to me, only it doesn't end. Worlds end, and we end in this world, but does time end?

This whole time thing seems to have been there from the beginning. "Beginning" seems to be a time thing, as well. On the first day, God created darkness and light, the first day. That's a marking of time. And a beautiful one, at that. Our place in space provides just the right time periods of light and dark for life to come into being. Also, for Being to come to life.

Day 2 of creation couldn't be a thing without Day 1 when days became a thing. These days allowed for God to work in a way that we creatures of time could consider. And we learn in the second creation narrative that God labored over us. We were not spoken or thought into existence in less than a moment. We were crafted with care from the dust and breathed into so that we might have life and engage through time.

Why time?
For many, many reasons and things beyond reasons.
We grow in time. And that is beautiful.
We can move about over the course of time. And that too, is beautiful.
Relationships develop through time. Beautiful.
New life comes to pass with time. Beautiful.
In time, we can continue to praise.
We can fill this mysterious substance with the beauty of worship.

Time allows for the vibration of a string,
for the existence of a tone,
for sensing the trajectory of a phrase and feeling its fulfillment,
for an impulse to become a dance,
and for a mood to become poetry.

And sometimes, we wait. Yes, waiting can let us know that we are not in charge, that one who is superior to us is doing the scheduling. But there is so much in my waiting that I don't believe is from God, and coercive manipulation through time doesn't seem quite like Jesus to me.

In reality, it seems more likely that God is doing the waiting.

The Ancient of Days - what a tremendous and unfathomable character!
One who creates all but is willing to wait for me, to put me somehow in the driver's seat.
What a relinquishment of control and willingness to be vulnerable!
What freedom granted!

And what pain that One must endure.

I know from my own waiting that the ones who make me wait are not always trying to assert power. Often, they are oblivious to good desires for their lives. What is needed in these situations is not a response to my schedule or authority but fresh priorities, new vision, a reorientation.

What is God waiting on from me?

I believe it must somehow be the same but much better - a wonderful ongoing rebirth.
I think God must desire a simple turning and returning within me to notice and accept God's wise desires for good, God's great willingness to love.

Why was time created?

I like this answer from Henri Nouwen:

"God loved you before you were born, and God will love you after you die. In Scripture God says, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.' This is a very fundamental truth of your identity. This is who you are whether you feel it or not. You belong to God from eternity to eternity. Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, 'I love you, too.' "