Open to the Spirit
Today’s word: Timelessness
1) So much of our living on earth is measured in minutes and hours and days and years. Science tells us we are in constant movement along a linear path that is measured this way. Our minds have difficulty imagining anything that sits outside these parameters. Time-based events have been described as events that take place on the horizontal axis. According to many theologians, however, the world of the spirit takes place on a vertical axis. Searching for meaning and purpose go beyond our time-bound bodies. I remember watching Nelson Mandela’s release from jail after 27 years or imprisonment. He walked down a long, long road, symbolic of the long journey towards freedom for his people. The streets were lined with well-wishers and reporters. The TV commentators spoke in hushed tones.
I felt I was witnessing the triumph of the human spirit against overwhelming odds. This spirit was not broken nor embittered through torture or solitary confinement or the absence of loved ones. This spirit grew in grace and love for even his tormentors.
Truly it was a timeless moment, food for inspiration for generations to come.
2) What is your favourite movie of all time? My choice is Casablanca. Set in the early days of World War II, it describes the ill-fated love of two people in a chaotic situation. It has such famous lines as: “Here's looking at you kid”, “We'll always have Paris”, “The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this carzy world”. It deals with refugees seeking a new life in America, war, corruption, personal sacrifice, and of course love. I'm not sure why the word we chose this week made me think of “Casablanca”. But perhaps it reminds me that the turmoil of today is not that much different what society has struggled with before. This movie is timeless.
I also believe the stories of the Bible are timeless. The message of Jesus also keeps it's relevance. His message of unconditional love, peace, justice, and compassion created new vibrant communities. The parables he told, for example, still resonate, like: “The Prodigal Son”, “The Sower and the seeds” “The Shepherd and the lost sheep” or “The Good Samaritan”. I remember a church youth group where one of the teenagers brought a friend who had never hard any stories from the bible. Her parents had chosen to isolate her from any religious teaching. Each time I shared a story she had the most amazing perspective. She often was far more engaged than the church kids.
There's a tendency in our postmodern world to throw away everything from the past. The faith stories from all religions are cast aside, as people see little relevance for their message. I disagree. Like the movie Casablanca, some things truly are timeless.
3) There is a quote in Jungian circles about the Bushmen of the Kalahari, who say there are two kinds of hunger. On the most basic level there is the small hunger that keeps us busy seeking sustenance to keep the body alive. But once our physical hunger has been satisfied, we experience by virtue of being human a greater level of need, the hunger for meaning.
I believe in the timelessness of human spirit. The world's treasury of myths, legends, stories, poetry, song, religions and arts of all cultures are the legacy we humans inherit that transcends our own existence in time. Mythologist Joseph Campbell helped open our minds to the symbolism of our diverse cultural heritage, as did the psychologist Carl Jung in helping us understand the underlying archetypes that resurface in all forms of meaning we humans have invented. Over and over through all time we hunger to know: who are we, where are we, why are we here?
Timelessness has become a fascination for me. When my newest quarterly issue of Parabola arrives, I welcome it as a long-awaited visit from a wise guru. For days and weeks I live within its pages, exploring eternal themes. Themes that are much like these words we four write to every week here in this Record column. If there is one sustaining note playing in the background of our Open to the Spirit adventure, it might be this commitment to explore what is timeless, in order to feed our own soul's hunger and nurture the sacred in each of us.
We spend much of our lives satisfying the first hunger, keeping the body alive. But the hunger for meaning erupts to remind us we are both body and spirit. Within the time-bound context of our lives, let us remember to take "time out" to absorb and reflect, to dream, to contemplate and find meaning, make old meanings our own, or create fresh meanings to enrich our lives. By so doing, we weave the eternal into our own small corner of time.
4) Timelessness. How rarely I have visited this place. Very occasionally, in meditation or prayer, or sometimes during a walk in the woods, does my sense of time drop away.
Mostly, I am on the clock. Even at the bedsides of the dying, I cringe to admit how often my mind travels to the next thing. How long can I stay? What time is the next meeting or commitment?
But there are moments when all is clear. Moments when I know that there is no difference between now and later, no deadline other than the call to be present to whatever is happening right now, no division between heaven and earth.
Then comes the rushing again: four more minutes on the clock as we write about timelessness, one more hour until plans for dinner, three more days until Sunday, twelve years until retirement. What a lot of nonsense.
Perhaps someday I will master the art of timelessness. Perhaps I can live with one foot in the stream of time and one on the eternal shore. Perhaps I will be able to get things done while knowing that the only requirement is to let myself be.
In the meanwhile, I have an oh-so-important to-do list. I have deadlines and commitments and not enough time. Someone somewhere is laughing at my pride. Someone somewhere is inviting me to rest.
One word, four voices - now it's your turn to reflect: How do you experience the sacred dimension of timelessness?
Rev. Mead Baldwin pastors the Waterville & North Hatley pastoral charge; Rev. Lynn Dillabough is now Rector of St. Paul's in Brockville ON. She continues to write for this column as a dedicated colleague with the Eastern Townships clergy writing team; Rev. Lee Ann Hogle ministers to the Ayer’s Cliff, Magog & Georgeville United Churches; Rev. Carole Martignacco is Consulting Minister to UU Estrie-unitarian Universalists in North Hatley.