He was still and gazed deeply into the infinite pool that bears stars into being. Above him was a tiny smudge of light that was the closest galaxy. It was spinning, spinning, but so far away that one could look for a whole lifetime and not see it alter. The galaxies out there whirled into each other like discs, blinding into space without colliding--passing through each other at thousands of miles per second, yet they did not appear to move.
Suddenly he understood: Time is an illusion of the mind. Only love remains.
BLESSINGS, dear friends! Welcome to a new season ... a time for letting go like the falling leaves of authumn ... a time to simplify, to pause in the silence of deep prayer and ask for guidance: i.e., "How would You have me best use the days of this season to Serve in your Dream for our world?" Then, listen for a word, Divine Hints that may surprise you ... and, trust, trust that you will live into the answer to your request as you hold the question in your heart.
Silence is making-friends-with-time. It does not fight it or waste it; it refuses to run after it. Silence floats free of time, letting the pattern of the moments unfold at its own pace... In silence we break the hold time has on us, and accept in practice that our true home is in eternity.
It's a curious paradox in this life that change is a constant, dependable, and unchanging fact. But when we try to control the moment by denying what is so, we have lost the moment to the past or the future. Trying to alter the moment steals it from us. If we want fruitful change in our lives, we have to move through each moment, experiencing its wholeness, savoring what it has to offer, noticing where we are stuck, and in the process maintain an intimate contact with our deepest sense of self.
They are not long These days to be But a taste of eternity. In each hour, There is the power Of a Now That stretches timeless In Its core And knows eternity Be not more.
We nee to "slow down to a human tempo" and experience time as it was meant to be experienced. We already live in "the fullness of time," and we must give ourselves a chance to realize that we have what we seek. Our hearts and flesh cry out for the living God, Who IS here, right now, among us if we but receive that Divine Presence. The call to take time to be holy is a call to integrate prayer and life, for they are, in fact, one. The call is to live as if all time were Holy time. So, I rejoice to announce to you, it is!
I stood there dumbfounded by the vast silence. . . And, for one of the many times in my life, thinking, "Robert, what in the name of heaven have you gotten yourself into?" For the first few days, time weighed very heavy on my hands. I found myself constantly looking at my watch. I was suppose to look for fires fifteen minutes out of every hour and phone in a weather report each day at noon, but otherwise I could do as I wished. By the third day, however, something changed. Time was no longer an entity that pressured me. Time became like the flow of a river, and gradually I came into accord with the rest of nature. I was never again bored or lonely that summer. . . Living in the wilderness frees us from the tyranny of time and reveals how different existence was for our ancestors.
~ from BALANCING HEAVEN AND EARTH by Robert A. Johnson
I am done with great things And big things, great institutions And big success, and I am for those Tiny invisible molecular moral Forces that work from individual To individual, creeping through The crannies of the world like So many rootlets, or like the Capillary oozing of water, Yet which, if you give them Time Will rend the hardest monuments Of our pride.
~ from THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM JAMES by William James
