Advent begins today—a time of waiting with joyful anticipation. Which is not how we usually think of waiting. More often we regard waiting as tedious or annoying or an interruption to our carefully planned life. But it doesn’t work to hurry the growth of a plant or the birth of a child—some things only come when the time is right, and one might as well celebrate the time that leads to fulfillment.
What do you wait for with joy in your heart?
Today we “fall back,” setting our clocks back an hour for the end of daylight savings time. It isn’t exactly a free hour—it’s an hour that you saved up back in March that you must now withdraw from that time bank. Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect interest on the time we save, gathering minutes as the months go by? But the only way to add to an hour is to get the most you can from each minute that you have.
How will you spend the hour that you have been saving all these months?
Wouldn’t it be great if a stopwatch would actually stop and restart time, rather than just stopping and starting a timer? I’m afraid the closest we’ll ever be able to come to that fantasy is to learn to be fully present and alive in the moments that we are given.
If you could pause time for some bit of your life, what moment would you choose?
How do you keep time? A watch? The readout on your phone or computer? Is time really something you can keep?
How do you save time? Microwaveable dinners? Making phone calls while you drive? Where do you keep the time that you have saved?
In this world of keeping time and saving time, how will you simply take time?
