Is it just me, or does time behave differently as you get older?
In my experience, the past and present blur together more as I approach 40.
When you climb a mountain, the ground you have already traversed can appear very different as you ascend. In the same way, incidents that happened years ago can now feel very immediate, sometimes more immediate than when they happened. And just as strangely, a moment in the present can feel as if I’m living it years ago. I had not observed that elongated dynamic of time earlier in my life.
Having kids has definitely impacted my perception of time’s passing. In a way, time slows down when your kids are young. You get this clear sense that your kids’ childhood is something sacred, perhaps as sacred as anything you will ever witness, and you feel the urgency to drink in their every word and action. But alas, despite your best efforts to live in the present, you realise this period of time will “slip through your fingers like sand,” to quote a slightly mawkish song we used to sing years ago.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, in reflecting on our tendency to lament life’s fleeting nature, used the word evanescent. Everything soon passes out of sight, out of memory, out of existence. Rabbi Heschel believes life’s evanescence is not something to bemoan, but rather an integral part of its beauty. The realization that life is slipping through our fingers like sand can actually motivate us, because we desperately want to appreciate something of its beauty and profundity. Now, all of time suddenly becomes holy. In the words of Heschel: “Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time?” Reading Heschel made me see that a central part of the human calling is to cultivate a worshipper’s stance as time unfolds.
Recently, on my way to work, I multitasked and listened to a voice note from a colleague as I drove. Maybe it was the stress of my frazzled schedule getting to me, but the predominant thought as I listened was, “What if I were listening to this the morning after he died?”
I am aware that my reverie was off-the-wall, possibly even certifiable behaviour, but don’t you agree it would be eerie to hear a recording of a dead person’s voice? Everything takes on a different sheen when it is seen in the light of our mortality, of time’s evanescence. No wonder so many mystics and monastics start their day with a meditation on death. Remembering life’s evanescent nature does not diminish our experience of the present, but rather expands it.
Imagine if we could go back in time and immerse ourselves in any point in our past, even if it were just for 5 minutes, and could experience it through the lens of what has subsequently unfolded (that routine introduction was actually you meeting your spouse, e.g.). We would be utterly transfixed. Every second would be pregnant with meaning! Sometimes I wonder if the afterlife won’t include reliving scenes of our lives, but with a panoramic view of the whole. (Obviously, I am not rooting that in orthodox Christian theology, though it is fascinating that numerous NDE’s report seeing their lives flash before their eyes.)
What does seem clear is that we must love the unfolding of time. We must love it all–the unpaid bills, our unfinished tasks and unrealised career goals, the quagmires of our human relationships, the turmoil of current politics. We must love it, knowing it is part of a mini-drama that is best understood as one united whole.
With this approach, anxiety about the current moment leads to hope and even worship because we remember our earthly sojourn is one interconnected story. Our mantra can now change from, “This season is really hard,” to, “The God who began a good work in you will also bring it to pass.” And we can stand in awe at the constant unfolding of time