Time & me

Lutheran, The, Jul 2001 by Miller, David L

If I'm to make peace with time, I need clarity and courage

Time and I need to kiss and make up. For as long as I can remember, I've treated time like an enemy.

At age 101 couldn't deliver my newspapers and get to school in time to avoid Miss Russell's scowl. I walked my route; daydreamed; talked with Goat Grindy, the bartender; and played with the dogs along the way. Then I'd sprint through gardens and across yards, slipping into my seat at roughly 8:29 and 57 seconds.

In high school, I was embarrassed when a friend told me play practice never began on time because everybody had to wait for me. "I can't help it," I pleaded. There was just too much to do and too many people with whom to linger.

I carried this pattern into adulthood, seldom arriving early for any class, usually late to staff meetings. When I showed up two hours early for my wedding, my beloved wondered if I was the right guy.

Even today I detest sitting at airports. I closely calculate the loading time so I can simply walk onto the plane without waiting.

Why this time compulsion? Perhaps it has something to do with selfjustification. Busyness is an American virtue, a status symbol. I recall meeting a colleague at the coffeepot several years ago. "Busy?" Sally asked as I filled my cup.

"Not too bad," I answered. "Must be nice," she sighed, and then launched into a litany of woe about the piles of work on her desk demanding to be done now!

We've all heard that litany and have said it ourselves. What interested me was my reaction. I began to feel defensive. My ego, my value, my importance was under assault. I waited for her to take a breath so I could tell her that I had actually underrepresented my workload.

Something inside me said: It's better to be busy. Important people are busy people. Or is it the other way around?

But there's also the whiff of a messiah complex in my hurry: "I gotta go, gotta run, gotta get this done. And if I don't, why ... well ... things will fall apart."

The world, at least my little corner of it, depends on me cramming as much as possible into the day to keep everything in order. I can't rest until everything is in its place. This is crazy, of course, because everything is never in order. There's always more to do.

Busyness is also a way to drown out inner voices I don't want to hear. One of them says, "You can't do it all. You don't have all the time you want. You're going to die."

And this becomes all the more reason to cram as much as possible into this hour, this day, this lifetime. Seize the day. But this often produces a promiscuous use of time. I run from one task to the next, taking little time to savor the grace present in the people and moments along the way.

It's promiscuous because my unreflective busyness fails to discriminate between those activities that truly reflect who I am and those that don't. My busyness is unguided by central questions such as: What song does God want to sing through this life named David? What does that mean for this hour, this day, this lifetime?

These questions "save time" from waste and insignificance. They "make the most of the time" for the purpose of the One to whom all "my" time really belongs.

So if time and I are to kiss and make up, I need at least two things-- clarity and courage. I need some clarity about who I am and what God seems to want from this life. And I need the courage-and the grace-to be that person, resisting the compulsion to justify myself by doing more, and more and more..

Miller is editor of The Lutheran.