Time

Time is to space what energy is to mat­ter. That is the for­mula given by Albert Ein­stein. It is ele­gant, pro­found, sim­ple, yet absolutely mind-boggling. All four enti­ties inter­act in var­i­ous ways (time moves at dif­fer­ent speeds at dif­fer­ent grav­ity lev­els). For con­tem­po­rary peo­ple, our con­cern about time is how to man­age it. We look for time sav­ing tac­tics. It is our hope that we can squeeze more into a day. For­tunes have been made by time man­age­ment experts. We are in a race against time, because we do not under­stand that time is tem­po­rary and that an eter­nal state awaits in which there is no time.

Time exists only where there is mat­ter. It is a tricky lit­tle phe­nom­e­non. We per­ceive it at var­i­ous lev­els. When we are bored, it seems to go slow. If we are enter­tained, it seems to go fast. In real­ity, it only exists in a moment by moment basis. As one per­son said, “Time exists so every­thing will not hap­pen all at once.” Odd as that sounds, that is appar­ently what the Cre­ator intended. Time hap­pens so there can be a story-line. We equate time with the stages of our bod­ies. His­tory has its place. We have all sorts of hol­i­days to mark time. They give us a sense of con­ti­nu­ity. The earth revolves around the sun, as we hur­tle through space at an incred­i­ble speed. Where we are going, we do not know. All of this is in motion, yet it seems so still.

Some­thing within noth­ing­ness orches­trates the entire show. It is a mys­te­ri­ous force that pushes galax­ies apart and keeps a rel­a­tive con­sis­tency going in every­thing. There is no greater mir­a­cle than to real­ize the sim­plest facts of real­ity. You open your eyes. You breathe. You think. Some­thing absolutely pro­found is hap­pen­ing. Peo­ple that miss the point of it tend to com­plain. They whine. They are short-sighted. A phe­nom­e­non beyond our wildest dreams is hap­pen­ing. Tak­ing it for granted denotes a loss of spir­i­tual per­spec­tive.

I am glad that every­thing does not hap­pen all at once. My lit­tle dose of a few decades in a scheme of eons is enough for me to appre­ci­ate the Divine Mys­tery. I have eter­nal worth. Some­day I will be more aware of the eter­nal state from which it all springs. For now, I mea­sure time. I antic­i­pate. I regret. I avoid the present with men­tal games. Time has been both enemy and friend. It is big­ger than I am. As I age, I work to make it more my friend. After all, there is no end to the road. It is best to make my peace with time now, so I will have prac­tice mak­ing peace with eternity.