The Gift of Time

            The best gift any of us has is time. God made time and created room for us. In giving us time and space, God has given us enough independence to determine what we will do with the brief time we have.

What will we do with our time?

So often, we are in a hurry. We are too busy. We do not make time for each other the way we could. We do not make time for the things that are important to us. We know they are important, but somehow we are just too busy. We let trivia get in the way. You know how it is. We might even let the past get in our way with regrets or with resentment toward others. We obsess over small things. We let things the things that demand our attention now consume our lives. We never quite figure out how to organize our lives so that we avoid the trivia and stay focused on what is important to us.

When we are young, we always feel that life has not yet begun. We will begin life next week, next month, next year, after the holidays – whenever. Before we are aware of it, we are old and wondering what in the world we did with the time we had.

            For most of us, friends and family are important. Yet, unless something happens to wake us up, we often let so many other things crowd them out of our lives. We just do not have the time.

            The death of a friend or family member can be one of those precious moments that make us stop or pause long enough, in the midst of the rush of life, to consider what is important to us. Do we have our priorities aligned right? Such a moment can make us reflect upon the life of another person, as well as what that person meant to us. What qualities did we admire? Can we incorporate some of those qualities into our lives?

I have thought of many images for the point I want to make. One could use the image of a pattern we make with sewing, of the story we might write, or of the picture we paint. Today, however, I am thinking of the song we sing. Most of us like music, whether we are good at singing or not. Think of your life as a song your life is singing. The song is not over yet, of course. So far, do you like the song?

            Think of your song as influencing the song other people are singing with their lives. Your contribution may be large, contributing major themes. However, it may also be a simple note, a change in tempo, or a rest. You have the privilege of contributing to their song.

            Of course, ultimately, we have a connection to God. We need to find a way to connect our song with the song God is inviting us to sing.

            None of us knows how much time we have. The song continues with additional themes, measures, and verses.

The thing is, for some people, to continue with their song is one of the toughest things they will ever do. It might be after a major disappointment, a disruption in a relationship, the realization that you could have done so much more with your life, or the loss of one close to you. Whatever the circumstance, it can seem almost impossible to continue with your song. The way of a human life is not straight or easy. We may well have to dig deep into matters of who we are, whom we desire to be, matters of character and values. Truth is, you never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.

            One further word might be helpful. When you have reached your limit, you may well find that God, whose creative love knows no limits, is there.

Why I do not do Resolutions

            I recently read a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin says to Hobbes, “Resolutions? Me? What are you implying? That I need to change? Well, buddy, as far as I am concerned, I am perfect in every way.”

My lack of interest in making resolutions is not a fear of a change. Rather, because I value change, I do not make such resolutions. Obviously, if you have found a way to make them work in your life, you need to keep at it. My assumption is that most of us need to change. At the end of the year, in that entire span of time from Thanksgiving to the New Year, I like to engage in some meditation and reflection that. I like to think it helps me see some things about me that need change. If the end of the year encourages you to do that, the people around you will be grateful.

I do not make resolutions in part because I believe that moving toward being the person God wants me to be is a daily charge I have from God. Daily, I want my life transformed into the image of Christ. I always need to be willing to leave behind the sins that hold me back from being that person God wants me to be.

            One disturbing element of resolutions is that we often “resolve” to do at that time of year things we ought to have started doing far earlier. From what I have read, resolutions tend to be around matters related to time with family and doing more things to improve self-care, whether for the mind, the soul, or the body. We are into “wellness” this time of year. Even Anytime Fitness in Logansport was full a few days ago. I have also read that many people want to spend less time on Facebook. Of course, they posted this … on Facebook.

            According to Psychology Today, resolutions fail because they do not get to the real heart of what is going on inside of us. Here is how Michael Bader puts it:

"We don't develop self-destructive behaviors because we're weak, or because 'they just became a habit,' or because everyone around us was doing them, or because of our neurobiology or heredity. The meaning of these behaviors is unconscious and we develop them because they serve unconscious beliefs and needs. These beliefs and needs are important, albeit unconscious, building blocks of our identities. They provide a sense of unconscious safety, and changing them is unconsciously experienced as dangerous."

            What I read here is that we do things, or do not do things, because they reflect either conscious or unconscious needs or desires that already reflect whom we are and what we want to be. More pointedly, such rules may pull us back from who we desire to be. Your life is already following a rule, whether you have consciously chosen it or not, a rule that accomplishes something that you need, desire, or want, again, whether you are aware or not. That explains why so many resolutions fail. They tinker around at the edges, instead of helping us look honestly at the person we have become and the person we desire to be.

            Marjorie Thompson, in Soul Feast (1995) concludes her book by reflecting on the importance of developing a rule of life. She uses some examples of the rules of life others have developed. Her point is that if we are to grow our souls, we will need some type of structure. We need to look honestly at our character and our circumstances as we develop a realistic rule of life for this stage of our lives. If we are to be successful at incorporating a new structure in our lives, we will need to share with a friend or spiritual director and be part of the Body of Christ.

            As I have reflected on the notion of having a rule of life, I realize that I have developed some rules, some of which are quite good, while others, not so much. I will not bore you with them, but being able to state the rules that already guide our lives could be a helpful exercise.

            One more thing that disturbs me about New Year’s resolutions is the assumption that you are strong enough to resolve to make a change that you probably needed to make years ago. The fact is, I think, we are all quite frail in our attempts to make needed changes. We need the type of help to which Marjorie Thompson refers. We need the encouragement to keep on the path when we fail or succumb to the temptation to fall away.

            Yes, I am all for change. I am all for taking time on a regular basis to reflect prayerfully on our lives, and the end of the year may be a good time to do that. Yet, change is also a daily openness to God and to others. Make the changes as you see the need to make them.

            By the way, I can think of many passages in the Bible that can be of help in our desire to be a new person, a better person. I bet you can as well.

Stories of the Patriarchs

           I am think of the stories in Genesis 12-35 today. The caution one needs to have in these stories of the Patriarchs is to refuse the temptation to important too much later theology into their story. If we see value in discerning the ways of the God of Israel into these vignettes from family life, then we need to be modest about their theological implications. The period of the Patriarchs was simply one of a family struggling to find two significant things. One was progeny. The typical account of barrenness is a clear statement as to how fragile life could be for the nomadic family. Children were the primary way the nomad could think of connecting with something beyond him or her. Connecting to the future with a sense of hope is an important connection for human beings to make. The struggle to offer the gift of children to the future was quite real. Two was to own land. In agrarian society, owning land was vital. Ownership made the clan at home.

            Beyond these two objectives, we find the struggle of a family to work out its relationships. Abraham and Lot must deal with discord. Abraham must let his son and servant-girl depart from the clan in order to appease his wife. Jacob deceives his brother and his father, departs from his parents, experiences deception at the hands of a relative, and carries with him the guilt of what he had done. In order for this family to survive, it would need forgiveness. Esau is the one who extends forgiveness.

            The meaning of their lives would move in quite different directions than they, their immediate descendants, or their neighbors, could have envisioned. These stories remind us that the meaning of human life is never completed, even at death

            Why would a sacred text, achieving its final formation in the exilic period, want to remember such mundane stories?

            For a sacred text, these stories remind readers of the risk God has taken. God has entrusted to weak and frail human beings the task of faithfully carrying out the divine purpose. These stories remind us of the patience of God in working with imperfect creatures over long periods in order to bring a family, a people, or a world, to the place God wants. Think of it. Abraham was anxious and fearful. Sarah was mean-spirited. Abraham showed lack of courage in facing his wife when she had done wrong. Jacob deceived others. Yet, these actions did not define who they were. In fact, these actions, honestly recorded for posterity, awaited a further fulfillment they could not imagine. In the case of the Patriarchs, their commitment to work out the mundane, intimate, and often dysfunctional family matters opened them to a future they never imagined. They did not know of covenants, laws, priests, kings, temples, Sabbath, circumcision, and the like. They did not offer the future a set of theological ideas or systems. What they did offer was their imperfect lives. In the process, unknown to themselves, they became the family that prepared the way for a new people of God.