Time is Life!

Time is a constant in our lives but our relationship with it is always changing. I remember as a child, lying on my back on the floor and watching dust particles dancing in the sunlight. I had nothing else to do, no place to be, no one asking me to do anything, no thought that I should be productive. I could just watch the dust and wonder. Time is more spacious when we are children. We haven’t caught onto its rhythms. We don’t try to control it. We simply accept it and receive its offer of life.

I remember one particularly demanding Christmas season when my children were all still living at home. Concerts, family gatherings, parties, events, meals, presents, decorating, and baking pressed in upon me and time seemed like a tyrant, pressuring me to accomplish more in its minutes than was humanly possible. The day when Christmas cards had to be put in the mail was nearing and there seemed to be no time to accomplish the task. One night, tired and cranky, I began to write and address my cards.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to write letters to friends I no longer see. As I began to write my letters to these friends, the rhythm of time changed. Instead of feeling like I was being crushed under time’s demands, time opened up and felt spacious and welcoming, so spacious and welcoming that I no longer noticed it. I was caught up in remembering wonderful moments I had shared with each friend. I was caught up in sharing the joys and sufferings I had experienced over the past year. I was caught up in the warm glow of friendship and the joy of shared life. My relationship with others changed my relationship with time. When I put the stamp on my last card, I came back to an awareness of time. I looked at my watch and was shocked to see that hours had passed. It was two o’clock in the morning. I knew I would feel tired the next day, but those beautiful, full hours of shared friendship were a surprising, surpassing gift in the season of gift giving.

Our relationship with time is shaped by many factors, some of which lie in our control and others that are imposed upon us. I have become aware of negative thoughts that shape my relationship with the clock. Somehow as I grew beyond watching dust particles dancing in sunlight, I shifted from experiencing time as a gift, to understanding it as a task master demanding productivity. Consequently, I often find myself filling the spaciousness of time with negative thoughts such as: Why is this taking me so long? Why is everyone else faster? Why am I so slow? Sometimes it is true that my time is very limited, and I have tasks to finish by a deadline that will not wait. These same negative thoughts drive me, however, even when I am operating with no real time pressure. Somewhere along the way, I learned to use time to beat myself up and to point out my inadequacies. Rather than offering me the space to receive life, time punishes me for not measuring up to its demands.

Spiritual writer, Thich Naht Hanh states,

You have heard the expression time is money but I say, time is life!

Silence
Thich Naht Hanh

We live in a culture that values productivity and efficiency often to the point of devaluing relationships. We waste the gift of time by doing tasks with our eyes on the clock instead of on the relationships that lie at the heart of our tasks. Then in order to be successful, in order to be noticed, in order to please, in order to count, we often squander the gift of time by handing ourselves over to tasks that are not ours to complete.

We don’t always have a choice to slow down. Often external factors push us into moving at a pace that causes stress. But I think we can work to become more aware of the choices we make to fill our days with unnecessary tasks. We can look for the spaces arising in the midst of our day giving us the choice to move at a slower rhythm. Wisdom might even teach us to graciously accept our limitations and give us the freedom to live with uncompleted tasks.

In a wonderful book on time, To Everything a Season: A Spirituality of Time, Bonnie Thurston writes of her own journey from feeling enslaved by time to feeling free. She says,

I found peace in the realization that, like everything else, time is the creation of a generous God Who always provides not only the bare essentials, but usually a feast.

To Everything a Season: A Spirituality of Time
Bonnie Thurston

When we are invited to a feast, we don’t devour the food that lies before us looking for more, afraid it will run out. We accept our status as guest, sit down, pray, and receive the food in gratitude and love for our host.

About the Author:
Patricia Sharbaugh

Associate professor of theology at Saint Vincent College, writer, mother, grandmother. Interested in reading more?

Check out my book here.