Sunday, March 30, 2014

ABOUT TIME


Last night the sunset took us by surprise as it exploded into streaks of pink orange across the horizon. The blazing sun furiously hurled brilliant red light as if it understood its near, inevitable demise while steadily sinking into the shadows of Whidbey Island. The emanating colors leaned low across Gardner Bay as if stretching their wing span like a heron seeking to roost on the hospital towers in town miles away to the East.

Lighter hues filtered up to the lowest clouds. And the sun pierced through our living room blinds seeking to incorporate us into the process for a few minutes. Then the sunset faded to common evening blues. The process was an unanticipated gift we accepted with appreciative sounds even after it left us. 

It was time for reverie and near silence. Mundane tasks we thought essential twenty minutes before, faded in the shadow of the brilliant sunset. For too brief a time everyone in our home simply lived in the moment of celestial grandeur.
 
Memory held the colors in our minds for a bit longer after the sun’s reflection in the clouds faded and the grey of evening rapidly focused our vision indoors and back on the activity of getting ready for sleep. And the sleep following glorious respite beyond our control was sweet. As if beyond time.

Monday, March 10, 2014

ABOUT TIME 3


There is something I want to do. Correction, I want it done. The area is prepared; the next action is identified. But this project depends on several people not just me. They obviously have priorities that do not include my project. Working with others demands I experience process. My project moves forward only as fast as the slowest member of the team.

We talk about the mental process, the manufacturing process, the decision making process, and due process of law. Then there is processed cheese, processed rubber, and processed information. Job hunting is a process. The inception of a thought must process through the synapses before it achieves recognition, before it can be named.

If there is something that does not involve process, I can’t think of it. A meal, dressing for the day, garbage collection, the hangnail developing on my left thumb, a storm, a sunset, an argument: all take time. I can think of nothing that skips beginning and jumps immediately into the past, fait accompli.

And time is one of the crucial realities of living we cannot control. We may anticipate as we move toward a desirable process like a train trip through Pennsylvania, or a week of vacation at the beach.

At a different time dread overwhelms our emotions; we fearfully trudge through a painful, inevitable process. We endure until the process is finished with us.

Process takes time. Even though nothing can try my patience like waiting for process to unfold, time is necessary. Grace allows others time to proceed on their course as it intersects ours. And through process we learn about ourselves, both good and not so good. It’s about time.

It’s all about time.