"The Duration of All Existence"

Rev. Joan Schneider
May 30, 2010

In Thornton Wilder's our town, Emily has died.  She is given one day to return home.  Looking around at people and things she has loved, she feels the pain of it all: "it goes so fast" she says, "We don't have time to look at one another."
            She sobs, "take me back '' I didn't realize.  So all that was going on and we never noticed ... Goodbye to clocks ticking and mama's sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new-ironed dresses and hot baths.. And sleeping and waking up."
            "O earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.  Do human beings ever realize life while they live it?  Every every minute."

            Those of us who were around in 1938 when Thornton Wilder wrote “Our Town” realize how much the world has changed since then
              Technology progresses at such a pace that the moment we obtain anything, it becomes obsolete..
Nothing is fast enough for us, not our food, or our fax.
            We complain (or do we brag?) About how busy and stressed we are, as we grasp the steering wheel tightly with one hand, clutching the cell phone with the other, eyes darting nervously from oncoming traffic to the dashboard clock which reminds us how little time we have to do all we have to do.
            It seems there is now even a way to speed up radio voices in order to allow more time for commercials.
            Isn’t progress wonderful!
Yet with all that progress it seems that the only fundamental truism is, “the hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”
Bookstores shelves display a wide array of books on time management –
                     If only we had time to read them.
            actually, “time management” is a misnomer. 
            There’s no way to manage time.
            Time must be spent at a fixed rate of 60 seconds every minute, 60 minutes every hour, 24 hours every day. 
 It is not time that we manage -
            or mismanage as the case may be –
It is ourselves
            We concern ourselves about not having enough time rather than deciding how to use the time we do have.
            What a paradox. 
                            Few of us have enough time
And yet everyone has all there is. 
When asked what is time” Saint. Augustine said: "I know, but when you ask me, I don't."
I love one dictionary definition of time as the “Duration Of All Existence.”             
Thinking about it that way changes the question. 
Rather than “how do you manage time?”  It becomes how do you want to approach the duration of your existence?
It is said that ministers preach that which we need to hear. 
This is certainly true when we preach about time.    
Managing ourselves around time is the plague of most ministers.             
I thought it would be easier in partial retirement
                        it is not.
            Old habits do not die easily
            So while I continue to try to manage my life around the issue of time  -
I frustrate all the procrastinators who believe that to manage time is to take the joy and spontaneity out of life.
            Richard Armour wrote:            
I've dusted my desk
                        and I’ve wound up my watch.
            I’ve tightened (then loosened)
                        my belt by a notch.
            I’ve polished my glasses,
                        removed a small speck
            I’ve looked at my check stubs
                        to check on a check.
            I’ve searched for my tweezers
                        and pulled out a hair,
            I’ve opened a window to let in some air,
            I’ve straightened a picture,
                        I’ve swatted a fly
            I’ve shifted the tie clip
                        that clips down my tie.
            I’ve sharpened each pencil
                        till sharp as a dirk ...
            I’ve run out of reasons for
                        not starting to work.

            Have you noticed that half the world procrastinates and the other half are compulsive, and we always end up living with each other. Procrastination vs compulsiveness may have been the major source of conflict in my home. 
            I do not understand the excitement of the race to get it done at the last possible minute. 
I hear that adrenaline runs and all manner of good things happen, and the feeling of final accomplishment is orgasmic in intensity.
            I think it is lost time - and with Benjamin Franklin, I believe that lost time is never regained.  
            I invite those of you who disagree and wish to rebut my remarks to share your comments.  Call me – or e-mail or snail mail.  It doesn’t matter.
             Just let me know whenever you get around to it.
           
Perhaps because time is difficult to define we speak about it metaphorically.
            From Alice’s adventures in wonderland, we heard wasting time, beating time, murdering time, and the mad hatter warns, "If you only kept on good terms with time, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock.
            We also spend time
                                    save time
                                                buy time
            But it is actually quite simple.
            Time is the one and only way in which all men, women and children are created equal. Time is a pure gift - each and every one of us begins each New Year with the identical 525,600 minutes.
            An additional 1440 each leap year.
            We don't earn it, we don't deserve it, we don't choose it, and yet, we all have all of it.  These minutes cannot be added to, changed, subtracted from, stretched or shrunk -- and they cannot be saved.
And yet we measure time as though this were not the case.
.  My life is contained in this electronic gadget.
Before I got my “time saving” palm pilot (which is, by the way, now obsolete and I am running out of time to buy them reconditioned on e-bay) I organized my life in a book   I referred to it as “my bible.”      
Squares and lines designating days of the week -- months of the year.      
The duration of my existence dictated not by the turning of the sun, but rather by the turning of a page –
               and now I simply touch a plastic marker to a plastic screen – and voila – I order my life!
            When hands on clocks went round, they at least hinted at the circular nature of time and life -- the ongoingness. 
            Today digital depicts time as linear, as we literally see time click by one number at a time.         
Since the time of Newton and Descartes time has been imaged as a forward movement of orderly and unchanging cadence, laid out like a grid upon our lives.
             Accepting this as a valid representation of time, we think we can “manage time” by inserting appropriate tasks into appropriate slots.
             When our lives fail to follow such orderly predictable paths, we reproach ourselves for lack of discipline, rather than wondering if our worldview may be out of whack.
            Think about it -- in times of tragedy those square and lines that drive our days suddenly become as insignificant as they truly are.
            Those people trying to clean up that oil spill probably don’t even know or care what day it is – let alone the time of day.
            But for some reason, when we are not in crisis, we create false systems of control.  
Always busy -- always running late.
                                    What is it that we run toward?
                        or away from?
            the Zen story recounts a devotee well known for his zealousness and effort.   Day and night he sat in the temple in meditation, not stopping even to eat or sleep. 
As time went by, he grew ever more exhausted. 
The master of the temple advised him to slow down, to take care of himself.  But the devotee refused to heed the advice.
 “Why are you rushing so,
                 What is your hurry?” Asked the master.
            “I seek enlightenment,” replied the devotee, “there is no time to waste.”
            “And how do you know,” asked the master, “that enlightenment is running on before you, so that you have to rush after it?  Perhaps it is behind you, and all you need to encounter it is to stand still.”
                        To everything there is a season
            And a time for every purpose under heaven
            a time to run -                and a time to stand still                     
            The Greeks have a word for it - in fact, two words.
Chronos - the time that marches on whether we do something about it or not. 
There is no way to stop the progression of time - the chronos. 
We will get older. 
Eventually every one of us will die.
            Kairos, is quality time –
                             time devoted to higher purpose.  
       Not the quantity of our lives, but rather the quality.
            Kairos - the time the writer of Ecclesiastes invites us to consider.
            The time Thornton Wilder urges us to honor.
                                    Kairos - the right time.
               I need routine in my day
                         and in my life
                                    I find it nurturing.
      And so I find that I miss the routine of full-time ministry. 
There was always a deadline to get the sermon done – the order of worship in – the newsletter column written – the report for the meeting
            May Sarton wrote: 
              "I know from having watched my father hack down incredible amount of work ... How supportive a routine is, how the spirit moves around freely in it as it does in a plain New England church.
 Routine is not a prison, but the way into freedom ... The apparently measured time has immeasurable space within it, and in this it resembles music."
            Can you feel the music of your life?
                        How does it feel?
Is it slow - peaceful – leisurely?
            or is it frantic
                  I’m late – I ‘m late for a very important date
  Probably most of us live somewhere in-between.
            It is important to be aware of our own needs, wants, and above all - our own ability to choose. 
            It is critical to take charge of your own life -
                                your own time.
            Find and honor your own pace - your own rhythm.
            take time for noticing - for appreciating.    
            And - while setting priorities for your time and your time out, ask yourself if there is anything important you have put off. 
            I mean something really important.
                            Someone you should write to?  Call?  Visit?
            Do it!!  Don't put it off any longer.  Tell somebody that you love them.  That you appreciate them.
 That your life is richer because they are in it.
            Do it today.
               Tomorrow could be too late.
                        How well I learned that that August Sunday.  The Sunday I did not visit Charlie in the morning because I was rushing not to be late to church.
            and while I was in church, Charlie’s spirit left his body
                        And I was not with him when that happened. 
                        No matter how we might wish it, there are no do-overs at a time like that.
One lesson that must be renewed again and again is appreciation for the preciousness of life. 
Over the long course of things nothing any of us do in the moment really matters
And yet – in another sense everything we do –
   everything we say
How we touch – or do not touch -- one another
Matters profoundly
               To be intentional in this paradox is the only time management that really makes sense.
            Clocks and calendars, week-days and week-ends, work days and vacation time are a human contrivance that give us an illusion of control -- but in fact,
Time owns us
            The Buddha meditated forty years beneath the bo tree after which his disciples called him “the enlightened one.”  He simply declared himself “awake”.
            Jesus fasted forty days in the desert to prepare to do his work in the world.
            Remember Tevye?  The sweetest thing he could imagine, if he were a rich man, would be to sit in the synagogue all day.
            Can you imagine meditating forty years?
                         Forty days?  Forty minutes?
            When was the last time you stood still for even forty seconds?
            Consider the possibility of even one day in which you schedule nothing!! What do you think you might do?  Clean the house?  Pay bills?  Run errands?
            Any chance you might stand still and let enlightenment catch up with you?
            A segment on national public radio’s living on earth caught my attention – i quote
            “In our fast paced western world, we would do well to take a lesson from the bog --
To be reminded of the true weight and the richness of the slowness of time.”
 The last thing most of us enter in our calendar is care of our soul -- our spirit.
             To some the very idea is anathema.
            We are far more invested in making that sale            
                        Perfecting our score --
            Getting to the meeting or the party on time
Teaching our children the importance of improving their grades --winning at sports
            And all the while -- the duration of our existence is frittered away with busy work and TV and computer games and accumulating “stuff.”
            So here is the question.
What do you want to do with the duration of your existence?
                        What do you really want?
                        Are you doing it?
                                    Why not?
            we Unitarian Universalists have no clear response to what happens to us after death -- all we can assure ourselves of is that what we do here on earth matters.
It is by the acts of our lives, by who we touch --by how we touch -- that our time on earth -- and beyond -- matter.
            So time becomes an even more precious commodity. 
            We can't waste even a single moment. 
The duration of our existence is all too short.
            "O earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. 
                        Life is so very precious  
Let us realize life while we live it - every every minute."
Whatever you do with your time, keep on good terms with it and it will do almost anything you like. 
                        Keep on good terms with it,
                                    it is yours -
            The duration of all of your existence;        
                                    Past, present and future.
                                                Cherish it well.
                                    In the end, time is all we have.

                                                            Amen