My favorite day of the week to schedule chores is always “the day after tomorrow”. You might ask, “Why?” I would have to say that today is here and I have things already going on. Tomorrow is too soon and ever pressing in on the events of today. The day after tomorrow is perfect! It is not today or tomorrow. It is too far off to press in on today. Since tomorrow turns into today we never really get to the day after tomorrow. This makes it the best day to schedule anything you really don’t want to do.
No matter how we label it, time is ever pressing in on us. We can slow the process a bit by focusing on the ticking seconds. I remember too clearly sitting in high school classes watching the clock tick off each second waiting to be released from the “blah blah blah” coming from the front of the room. I don’t enjoy waiting. Like many things, waiting is a matter of perception. Having a limited allotment of time here and so many things on my agenda, I feel disgruntled with time spent waiting. In reality the time I think I am “waiting” is time I am spending worrying about what other things I “should” be doing.
While I am absorbed in the moment, time passes unnoticed. Waiting then becomes the activity of sidestepping the present moment, or attempting to, and focusing on some unattainable future moment. If as a teenager I had understood this, I could have focused on any number of things that were going on in the classroom beside the ticking hands of the clock. I could have moved effortlessly through the torture that was my history class and released myself from the prison of time.
Now a mature adult, I find it much easier to stay focused on the moment. It truly is all I possess in life. It is a constant attention to time that restricts my ability to do and be. Life seems short when I think about how old I am and how quickly the years pass by now. Life seems to drag on much too long when I consider the possibility of being infirmed and unable to get out of bed unaided, as I have seen happen to others. I remember Job and his sufferings. I remember my father’s last months suffering in the intensive care unit. Both were pushed to the edge and I saw what they were made of. To avoid the trap of time in the midst of such travail, to hold onto the moment, embrace God’s grace and trust , is what I saw happen in Job and my father. When I can no longer “do” I must be comfortable enough with myself to just “be”.
Life does not come with a guarantee…well it is pretty certain that these physical bodies will eventually quit on us regardless of our best efforts. I am not ready to die today, tomorrow is too soon but perhaps the day after tomorrow!?
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