Time and Eternity


The year changes. We are in Advent. Yesterday we had the delight of putting up our Christmas trees and decorating the house for the season. Pulling out the ornaments revives so many memories. "Do you remember when we got that one?" We have marked significant events in our life with little reminders that come out once a year. "That's the ornament we got the year Candy died!" "The kids made that for us in elementary school!" The ritual is a reverie. 
The weather is noticeably wintry now. A few weeks ago we were in the change, when one day felt truly autumnal, the next with a bitter wind from the north. There is no mistaking the season now. For some time each morning we have heard the urgent honking of the geese overhead.
The seasonal change has set me to thinking about time—the fourth dimension. We live in three dimensions: length, breadth and height.  The fourth dimension is how three dimensional things appear over time. Our Christmas tree is a case in point. For the last thirty-some years we have added to our little store of decorations (each with their own set of memories, some happy and some sad to recall). Each year that we decorate the tree is a snapshot, a moment on a timeline. Our impression is that these snapshots occur one after another. Life moves from A to B, one event succeeding another. Time is how we mark change, for life is constant change. A successful and rewarding life is in part how we negotiate change ... from infant to child to teen to adult to middle age to old age, with all that life brings in changes from moment to moment.
There is a fifth dimension. It is the dimension of eternity, of Godhead, of spirit, of perfect rest and changelessness, of perfection. Mystics and sages and adepts in all the great traditions have told us that the way to live with the endless changes of life is to tap into the spirit where there is no change, for change is of time and eternity is beyond time.
In Advent we look at that strange, often scary, sometimes beautiful Jewish literature the scholars term "apocalyptic." "The End is near," announces the sage. "Be ready!" 
"You can know that the Realm of God is near. This generation will not pass from the scene until all these things have taken place." 
“Notice the fig tree, or any other tree. When the leaves come out, you know without being told that summer is near." 
“Watch out! Don’t let your hearts be dulled by carousing and drunkenness, and by the worries of this life. Don’t let that day catch you unaware, like a trap. For that day will come upon everyone living on the earth. Keep alert at all times. And pray that you might be strong enough to escape these coming horrors and stand before the Child of Humanity.”
Apocalyptic, at first glance, gives us a linear view of time. Time is a limited quantity. It began at some point in the past, and will end at some point in the future. 
But a second glance gives us a different perspective. What if the metaphors of apocalyptic writing are not taken literally and linearly but rather as ways of speaking of the eternal present? What if apocalyptic tells us not to be ready for some future event that we may or may not see, but to be ready at each moment, for every second is the eternally present. Each moment is change. Each moment is trial. each moment is joy. Each moment is when the Child of Humanity comes. But in each moment we can also tap into the eternal, the divine, the transcendent. Each moment is a window on eternity.
How do we open that window? Mindfulness, meditation and prayer are the keys of eternity. Make this a good Advent!
+Ab. Andy