The Time of Our Lives… CL

Every year my family has the tradition of watching A Christmas Carol (the movie version starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge) around this holiday season. We have watched it so many times that our VHS copy fell apart and we had to get a DVD. So many times that I have most of the lines memorized. And yet, it never occurred to me that the central theme of the story is not about money… but about TIME.

I have recently read a very good book. I chose it in response to my desire to improve and sustain my meaningful work here among you, and to do so in a way that keeps me healthy and happy, but allows me to serve more fully in this ministry we share together. The book was entitled "Beyond Busyness: Time Wisdom for Ministry." It is decidedly Christian in theology, and clearly written for clergy, but its central messages are not unique to the ministry. Time is a gift to all of us. How do we honor time?

In A Christmas Carol, the ghosts who visit Scrooge embody the fullness of time… The Past, the Present, and the Future.  Scrooge's primary tactic of bullying Bob Cratchit is to be a stickler about time.

As Stephen Cherry, the author of "Beyond Busyness" notes, "Ebenezer Scrooge's number one problem was not that he was mean but that he did not have time. Anxious about the pennies, and believing Franklyn's half-truth, "time is money", as if gospel, he gave all his time to his work."

Our culture is set up to treat time like a unit of currency. We speak of time in the same terms we speak of money. We say "We spent time," or "Saved time," or "Wasted time." We might even "Invest time" in some worthy cause. It is true that time is limited. The finite nature of our time in life makes it even more precious. Tragic events such as the massacre in Newtown Connecticut last week remind us to value our moments with loved ones.

But our experience of time is also relative. Waiting for Christmas morning takes, for many children, what seems like weeks. A child grows into a teenager in, what seems to a parent, only days. Time is not a clear-cut thing, no matter what our clocks and schedules say. What we need is not to "Manage" time (another financial metaphor) but rather to honor it as the sacred all-pervading entity that it is. Stephen Cherry closes his discussion of Ebenezer Scrooge with this: "The lesson of A Christmas Carol is this: rather than being money, time is priceless."

As we close out the winter holidays and look toward a new year (a turning of the calendar, a recognition of the cyclical and yet ongoing nature of our perception of time), how might we honor time rather than manage it?  

Here are some suggestions that I hope to utilize, myself…

- Honor time by "filling" it but not "spending, wasting, or saving" it.

- Slow down your perception of time by stopping every so-often to notice and breathe. This mindfulness practice takes a moment but it extends the time you actually have available to your conscious mind.

- Notice your time-personality and work with it. Are you a morning, midday, or night person? Are you a natural procrastinator or do you like to plan ahead? Do you like to be busy or have more down time?

- Make a list that includes three things: "To Do", "Might Do," and "Don't Do." These priorities will help keep straight what is needed in your finite time, not what is simply urgent.

- Cultivate a sense of awe about time. As miraculous as the universe itself, the grandeur of time as a 4th dimension is beyond our mind's comprehension. And yet, the reality of time is magnificent. It is more than a wristwatch.

As we prepare in our minds and hearts to "begin again" with a new year, why not consider a new relationship with time? It is an incredible gift!