The Eternity of One Day

(The Gospel of Matthew)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

On the final day of a recent retreat at a Benedictine Monastery our wonderful monk reflected that our last morning might not feel as powerful as previous sessions – because in many ways we had already left the monastery. We had packed our bags, stripped our beds, left our rooms, and our magnetic pull had spun homewards. And as I ushered our students towards our bus ride home, I chatted with our retreat leader monk about how much his observation resonated with my current state of being. I am in my final half-term at a school I have worked in for sixteen years, and it feels like I have already left in many ways, and therefore, in some ways, struggling to get through the last bit without a certain absence of presence. I asked our wise guide for any advice:

‘Take one day at a time.’

He said other helpful things - but this insight was incarnated with a powerful presence - a lived wisdom from someone who had followed the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Divine Office for over forty-five years – rising at 5.30am for Matins at 6.00am, Lauds at 7.30am, Mass at 9.00am, Sext at 13.00, Vespers at 18.00, Compline at 21.15, and all the other duties, studies, and silences between.

His words have planted a small seed of something strong in the depths of my psyche – I can feel it search and sip for those living waters in the secret springs within – those obscure, open, and obsolete little oases in the desert-heat of my distracted disposition, always desperate to keep moving, keep doing, keep searching, and keep seeking for something. Tick tock, tick tock:

‘Time is money’; ‘How are you spending your time?’; ‘What a waste of time!’; ‘We’re running out of time’; ‘I don’t have time’; ‘You’re on borrowed time’; ‘Time is ticking’; ‘Turn back the hands of time’; ‘Killing time’; ‘Doing time; ‘Time is on my side’; ‘In the nick of time’; ‘Only time will tell’; ‘All in good time’; ‘Time is of the essence’…

I think time really is of the essence, but sadly, often, ‘the essence’ is perceived in utilitarian-capitalistic-consumer terms. Many of our phrases about ‘time’ reveal our essential cultural values, in which time is linked to productivity, trade, punishment, money, resources, and competition. These phrases imply that time is valuable only if it is useful, and profitable. If we ‘spend too much time’, or hell-forbid, ‘waste some time’, we eat into our profitability, productivity or self-improvement metrics. If we ‘lose time’ we feel like losers. If we ‘gain time’ we feel like winners.

I am embarrassed to say that this mindset creeps into my thinking when driving, especially when using a Satnav device. Some desperate part of me, that lives in a rather small and irritating corner of hell on earth, wants to ‘beat the clock’, and in so doing, ruin the enjoyment of the journey, and possibly even risk unwise speeding decisions; all in the service of a self-imposed deadline. (Dead in so many ways!) The essence becomes the destination. The essence is in the achievement of the goal. And therefore, the reward is the ‘5’ or ’10 or ‘50’ minutes ‘saved time’ at the end of the journey. Time in the bank. Which I could maybe use to ‘save more time’!

Perhaps this is a rather tragic metaphor for our deeper relationship with time, and explains why, and how, we interpret our essential life stories in the way we do. Indeed, I think, perhaps, our feelings of unworthiness, shame, guilt, and failure arise out of the poor relationship we have with ‘time’.

Part of the problem is The Exchange Rate: it’s too fast. ‘We must not be hasty,’ as Treebeard says in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings. But, it is also to do with our relationship to time: whether we relate to it as a finite resource, that is ultimately mechanical (tick tock tick tock), transactional and mathematical; or whether we relate to it as the evolving context of the eternal – The Son part of The Trinitarian dance. In my experience, the first relationship leads to a sense of separation (or ‘sin’). A sort of hell on earth, when feelings of panic, guilt, shame, condemnation, and disappointment reign. Whereas the second relationship is characterised by a feeling of connection, at-one-ment, wholeness, belonging, and possibility.

Let’s call the first option The Time Machine. It’s a like a petrol tank full of sticky oil and smelly gas. We don’t know exactly how much Time we have in the tank, so we do various things to save, top-up, maintain, improve-efficiency, cut-back, stock-pile, and so on. Ultimately, however slick, strong, solid, secure, and sustainable, our Time Machine is, we are plagued with a sense of losing, wasting and worrying. How am I spending my time? Did I waste my one chance at life? Am I loser? How can I still win? How long have I got to turn this all around? What if I die soon?

I’m not sure Our Capitalistic Conscience and Technological Acceleration has helped. It has made The Time Machine more real, more advanced, and more pernicious. We can’t ignore the data. The numbers don’t lie. And the numbers on the clocks are everywhere. Reminding us to get a move on. Speed up. Don’t be wasteful. You’re wasting your life. You’re a failure. You’re a loser. You’re running out of time. Deadlines. Deadlines. Deadlines. Death.

Interestingly, it was the Benedictines, my retreat leader’s monastic order, going back to the fifth century, that invented the first clock. But they created the clock to serve their life of prayer, worship, and work. The clock was a way of curating and choreographing their rhythms, movements, and seasons. Essentially, the clock was designed to help them be present to the particular aspect of their work, worship, and prayer life. The bell rings for Matins, so the Monk goes to matins, and doesn’t have to worry about anything else, until another bell signals that it is time for breakfast, or whatever. This allows them to be present for prayer, and present for breakfast. No need to plan, anticipate, deliberate, etc. Just go to Matins. Go to breakfast. At some point a bell will tell them it’s time for brewing beer. And then a bell for drinking it, and laughing about themselves and each other. The clock facilitates. The clock serves. The clock provides the beat, rhythm, and pulse of the day’s divine dance. It liberates the monks from unnecessary mental bother, so they can be present. And if we are truly present, then we are in the eternal – where we are whole, home, and in true communion. We feel secure. We feel free. We feel at peace. We feel wonder. We feel joy. We feel love.

If this all sounds a bit woo-woo, perhaps, this logic might help: the present is not the past. The present is not the future. If something is outside the past and the future, it is outside of linear time. It is beyond beginning and beyond the end. It is, therefore, in some sense, eternal.

Let’s call this type of relationship The Present of Time. Partly, because of the monks’ imaginative invention, which helped them be more present on their life of prayer and worship, but also because it is a gift. It is free. It is slow. It is here. It is now. It is within. It is without. It is eternal.

The bell was made for people, not people for the bell. Time was made for people, not people for time. Or as Jesus said, ‘The sabbath was made for people, not people for the sabbath.’

The bell serves us in being more present. And in the present moment, nothing is actually wrong. It is only the rumination of the past, or anticipation the future, that disturbs the peace. It is only the stories we tell ourselves that disrupt our tranquillity. And these stories are linear. The ego exists in such stories, and therefore, in The Time Machine. And it is only the ego who suffers in such stories. But we are not our stories. If we can observe them, we are not them. We are outside of their timeframe, overseeing their plotlines. And what is this awareness - this aspect of myself that can watch from outside the sands of time: my soul.

These reflections bring to mind William Blake’s mysticism, in which Eternity (Eden) is associated with a multi-possibility reality. There is no past-present-or future in Eden. Time (a fallen state) however can have 'infinite like' potentialities only via continual productive acts of imagination. Perhaps, that is why Blake writes in ‘The Marriage of Heven and Hell’:

“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

When we participate in the mystical way of knowing, which we call ‘imagination’, we connect with the infinite. Perhaps it is not just the rational part of us that is ‘made in God’s Image’, but the ‘imaginative.’ And when we harness this deeper, child-like, free, creative, expansive, generous, grateful, paradoxical, nuanced, playful, POWER, we can experience Heaven on Earth. Eternity in Time. The Kingdom Within.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.”

― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Now is the time to revolt against The Time Machine, with its mercantile, material, and mortal measurements of productivity. Now is the time for imagination, grace, and space. For going slow. For wasting hours in pointless prayer, play, and pottering. Now is the time for spending days on nothing much. For spending our time on things we can’t sell, save, or swap. Time is a present. It is the love language of the eternal. It is the context for our divine relationship. The divine exchange. The divine game.

It’s not about getting to the end – which kills the only real-life available to us. It’s not about saving up as much as possible – there's no time in the future! It’s not a race. It’s not a punishment. It’s not a mistake. It’s not a trick. It’s not a fluke. It’s not a joke. It’s not a terrible trade-deal. It’s not a commodity.

Time is a verb, not a noun.

It’s about timing.

It’s a dance, not a deadline.

It’s a divine office.

So, let’s ignore the industrial sounds of clocks ticking, and numbers counting, and enjoy the value of taking our time. Let’s hear the clocks as Benedictine bells; bells singing out a tune for us to dance to, sing with, and keep us in the rhythms of incarnate time.

Even the universe has its bells - its moon cycles, sun cycles, and star cycles. Nature’s bells - calling us to The Presence of the present.

“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

All we need is one day.

All we have is one day.

‘One day at a time.’

Amen