People don’t like going out in the evenings. We must accept that. Maybe for a meal, for a drink, to play bingo, to watch a football or rugby match, to go shopping, to go to the cinema or theatre, visit family or friends, to go for a walk or run or a cycle ride. But that’s all. Church and church meetings – people don’t go out in the evenings.
People make time for what interests them. We don’t find time to do things, we make time to do them. “I’m sorry I couldn’t visit you (in hospital, home, nursing or care home) but I’ve been so busy! You’ve no idea. I’m as busy as when I was working. I even wonder how I found time to go to work, ha, ha!” Not convincing, is it. How can the ten hours that work entailed, including going and coming home, disappear? 10 hours!
Everyone throughout history has been given the same amount of time each day – 24 hours. Hours of daylight and darkness may vary, but the time is the same. People have composed music, written books, walked the earth, organised great charitable works, explored and discovered new worlds, developed businesses, and other people have told them how they should have done it, how they themselves would have done it better if they had only had enough time. All those wonderful people who would have done so much more if only they had a 48 hour day. Two days gives them 48 hours.
The secret of time is eternity. When you are lost in time, lost in what you are doing, you are in eternity. Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” – do we ask how long it took? Beethoven composed the “Pastoral Symphony”, Leonardo painted “The Last Supper”, Michelangelo sculptured “The Pieta”, George Eliott, our greatest English novelist, wrote her books in beautiful neat handwriting. Such works of art are forever. Do we ask how long they took? Acts and words of kindness are also forever. Do we ask how long they took?
Say you can’t do it, say you are not interested, but don’t pretend to yourself you don’t have time. You make time for what matters to you. Make time for God. Prayer is easy. Just being with God. You don’t even have to move – out of bed, your chair, your house. Make time for God and you are in eternity. You can pray anywhere, any time. “No, I’’m too busy.” No, you’re not interested, sadly. Do you believe in God?
Loving God, and in prayer with God, we take time into “the silence of eternity”. Without love and prayer, we only have religion, empty religion. But with love we pray.
Dear God, bless us to be real and bring your love and ours through time into eternity.
Fr John
(28th January 2019)
Related Links: Popular Reads and Fr John’s Parish Newsletters
