THEME                Time and the Timeless

THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION

1. Each day can be a life time.
2. Time is the enemy only if we let it control our lives.
3. Time is redeemed by timeless moments.
4. When time flows it nurtures our spirit, when time marches on it becomes a prison in which the spirit languishes.
5. The time of your life is now!

PRAYER

O God, who is both beyond and within all time, as we evaluate this
past year, help us to assess what we should have left out of our
program as well as what we should have included that this coming year
may be a time of balance between the march of clock time and the
dance of spirit time.

 

HYMNS

You are the process God (BL)

 

Past and present.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/whakapono/online-resources/hymns/the-mystery-telling
Everything has its own season.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/whakapono/online-resources/hymns/the-mystery-telling

 

POEMS / REFLECTIONS

SCATTERED TIME

My days
seem to be scattered
like the working sheets
of a book
prior to compilation.
So I ask myself
does my life need to be compiled
before I die,
all sorted into appropriate
mutually exclusive categories
or can I leave it
to God
to make sense
of all my
multifarious
activities
and goals?

 

NEW YEAR

At the appointed moment
the clock struck
and a seemingly premature year
left eternity’s womb
and rushed into the light of day.
Somehow I wished
that the New Year’s birth
could have been delayed
if not aborted
for the clock of my life
does not seem to be synchronized
with the horologist’s certitudes.
Indeed it seems
to record
the hours and minutes
in another time zone.
I wonder what land of mind
my clock belongs to
since there is so much
of last year
still left to be completed?
Maybe time only makes sense
when without regret
we slow down
for it is not
the length
but the quality.
of time
that matters.
And what better quality
than that contained
within
the timeless world
of God’s
mystery.

 

BIBLICAL MONTAGE ON TIME

THE PREACHER SAID (Ecclesiastes 3:1) To everything there is a
season and a time for every purpose under the heaven.
JESUS SAID (John 7:6) My time has not yet come.
GOD SAID (Revelation 2:5) Behold I am making all things new.
THE PREACHER SAID (Ecclesiastes 7:10) Never ask “Oh, why were
things so much better in the old days? That is not an intelligent question.”
JESUS SAID (Matthew 5:17) I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.

 

A PARAPHRASE OF ECCLESIASTES 3:1-8

There is a right time for everything in creation
a time for light and a time for darkness,
a time for sound and a time for silence,
a time for action and a time for reflection,
a time for work and a time for play,
a time for waking and a time for sleeping,
a time for holding on and a time for letting go,
a time for dying and a time for new beginnings.
There is a time for negotiation and a time for confrontation
a time for advance and a time for retreat,
a time for laughter and a time for tears,
a time for intimacy and a time for solitude,
a time for others and a time for oneself
But all these times are God’s time
and now is the time to be aware.

FOCUS FOR ACTION
The march of time is clock time.
The dance of time is spirit time.
Spirit time is the space in which we can be still, gaze, wonder, delight in, rest, dance – a time when we can become one with the mountain, the sunset, another human being, with God.
How can I organize my life this coming year to ensure that I have
space for both?

LOGO NOTE: At the heart of the mystery all the separate boxes disappear and all is one, all is love.

Text and graphic © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.