This Sunday is an important date in the calendar; it is the beginning of British Summer Time. Through the long dark days of winter we look forward with eager anticipation to clocks going forward, and the first signs of spring and of people coming out of hibernation. Thinking about, and looking forward to putting all my clocks on one hour has caused to me to wonder about the whole concept of time and exactly what it is.
What is time? This has long been the subject of debate in all sorts of arenas from philosophy to art, and from science to poetry. While there is little dispute about how we measure time, there is no such agreement on its nature and just what it is. In my life I relate to time in terms of my past, my present and my future. There are moments in my life when I wish that time would stand still and that I could capture the joy and pleasure of a particular experience. There are times too when I want time to hurry along. But these are both things over which I have no control. Time continues to march along, oblivious to my desire to capture and control it. It can at the same time be both my servant and my master.
The bible has some things to say on this whole subject. The book of Ecclesiastes talks about the fact there is a time for everything under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to keep and a time to throw away. These experiences are common to us all and are part and parcel of our life here on earth. However, I also believe that as well as us all sharing time, we also share something beyond time. The passage in Ecclesiastes goes on to tell us that God has also set eternity in the hearts of men. There is something in us that is drawn to the eternal that is beyond the dimension we call time. Why don’t you take some ‘time’ this week to ponder this marvellous sense of eternity, of something far beyond us?
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