"Time" passages

The carpet is dirty from being walked through to get to the garage. I’m not sure why anyone besides me goes to the garage, but I know all this dirt isn’t just from me.

I have two little friends who visit me “down here” sometimes. One is less than three feet tall! The other is over forty inches and growing. They come down for a drink of water or to see if I have any chocolate. I really need to get some more chocolate. I’ve been out for quite some time now.

I come here to read or to write. There are lots of books so that makes a great environment for reflection and composition. I guess you could say it has ambiance. I’ve never counted my books but I’d say there are about a thousand. People always ask me if I’ve read them all. I wish! Like I have time!

Time – what a concept. It seems to change depending on where you are. If I am in bed and trying to sleep at two in the morning, time moves very slowly. The digital clock is not very helpful. It tells me when it’s 2:12. Then I close my eyes and try to sleep for what seems like an hour. When I open my eyes it’s 2:16!

All this is very hypothetical because in all actuality, I’m a pretty good sleeper. But it might happen to my wife. Apparently she sees quite a bit of that digital clock in the wee hours of the morning. But I can neither confirm nor deny her story, ‘cuz I’m like snorin’ away.

Then there’s “time” in the morning when my little friends wake up at six or six thirty. I tell them I really need to sleep till seven and can they please keep it down and maybe play quietly or something? So then the littlest one, who is not quite three feet tall, asks if he can have a drink or something to eat or can he go downstairs and get a gun or a sword. So I tell him, “Just ten minutes and I’ll get up and help you.” Then about 30 seconds later while I’m trying to doze back off he returns and I see that more than ten minutes has gone by.

But “down here” in the office, with the dirty carpet and all the books and the ambiance conducive to reflection and composition, “Time” proceeds as it should. There must be mechanisms governing the passage of time in different locations and situations; like the intricate workings of a grandfather clock with gears and springs and weights perfectly counterbalanced to hold back forces from moving things along too quickly. Here in my office each second gives me exactly enough time to say “one thousand one.”

Just what is the mechanism causing the sweep second hand “down here” to proceed at such a stately pace, like the father-of-the-bride escorting his daughter to the altar? It just might be that part of the ballast holding back the rush of time in this place is the many journals and planners and notebooks I have filled and saved over the past twenty years or more. I have written and saved plans and notes and lessons and sermons and memories of my life with the expectation that someday there will be “time” to go back over them.

And the books “down here” also offer weight and balance to the ever-forward driving force of life rushing on. From Homer to Plato to Paul to Present the records of other lives lived in other “times” sit on my shelves and hold back the encroaching future from coming too fast, from arriving too soon. Here there is time, and there will be time, to read, reflect, re-create. I am hopeful and expectant that for me there awaits further study and exploration.

So I come here, and I go back, all in good time. Dinnertime and bedtime, followed by breakfast, lunch and naptime. Summertime and Fall followed by Winter and Springtime. The ambiance will be here. The second hand will not rush. The books can wait but my little friends are impatient. Soon the articulate and authoritative little voice will be coming from more than three feet off the ground. His bold companion and mentor will lead him off, gun and sword in hand, to explore exotic lands and conquer far-off kingdoms. They may want me to go along. I hope they do.

No, the dirty carpet is not just from me. But I don’t mind it. It’s part of the ambiance. I’ll vacuum it another day. Right now I’ve got just enough “time” to consider a page from my past, a note to myself, which reminds me that this is not the first time I’ve pondered this predicament.

“I have arrived. Here with my books & my papers and my pictures there are things to be put in order. LAST of all I put my thoughts in order. What a relief! Here I appreciate the Life which, in my house, among my loved ones, I can only LIVE.

“ . . .But when I say . . . ‘only’ Live, I share Socrates’ view that the unexamined life is not worth living. And somewhere CSL has observed that one cannot simultaneously ENJOY & CONTEMPLATE. So I leave, I retire, I rest. I think, I read, I pray, I write – And upon my return discover . . .? WHAT? That time is precious, Life is a gift.

“Of Course Living is more important than writing and Life more important than Literature. But without books we are impoverished and our living is shallow when no time is given to thought & contemplation.” (Journal entry Aug. 11, 2003)