Category Archives: time

The Earth Is Filled With Thy Creation

art, calendar, church, icons, time,

It’s the first day of the church year.

I’m reposting from two years ago this icon that celebrates a major focus of the celebration, because I don’t want to miss the joy even if I don’t have time today to consider and write more.

Abundance and a New Year

September 1st marks the start of the church calendar,
and is a good time to remember the goodness of God’s creation.
I love this icon and the way it expresses the superabundance
of life and beauty in this world that is our home.
Lord, thank You for everything. Bless us in the coming year!

 

 You can see more detail on the iconographer Christina De Michele’s website. The icon is a church mural in Riverside, California.

In the last minute of the first hour.

humor, poetry, time, ,

My man and I laughed out loud over coffee and Wendy Cope’s poems this morning. I’ve had time and memory on my mind lately so I especially appreciated a lighthearted treatment of the subject in this one:

A Nursery Rhyme
as it might have been written 
by T.S. Eliot

 

Because time will not run backwards
Because time
Because time will not run
                                         Hickory dickory
In the last minute of the first hour
I saw the mouse ascend the ancient timepiece,
Claws whispering like wind in dry hyacinths.
One o’clock,
The street lamp said,
‘Remark the mouse that races towards the carpet.’
And the unstilled wheel still turning
                                                          Hickory dickory
                                                          Hickory dickory

dock

— Wendy Cope             

Our Continual Mistake – Quote

quotes, time,

From Father Alexander Elchaninov:

Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or in the future; we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. And we do not notice that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag.

Constantly, each day, each hour God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist God’s will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God’s will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life – what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depths of our soul!

Let us then be serious in our attitude towards each person we meet in our life, towards every opportunity of performing a good deed; be sure that you will then fulfill God’s will for you in these very circumstances, on that very day, in that very hour.

What was I thinking…

church, Lent, poetry, time

In Ephesians 5 we are told to redeem the time: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”

That admonition comes to mind as I read this poem, published just last year in the New Yorker. It’s by W.S. Merwin, whom I mentioned previously here and here in regard to his book The Folding Cliffs, which captivated me and gave me for the first time an interest in visiting Hawaii. By the way, my husband and I will be doing just that next month to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, which is one reason I don’t think I will be blogging much until after Easter/Pascha.

But back to the poem — it seems to me it speaks of how we can only make up for lost time by being attentive to the gifts that are coming to us right now, attentive to the presence of God. He is giving Himself in the present moment, and He has given us the lenten season to help us tune into that Reality, to come back to it and to Him.

THE NEW SONG

For some time I thought there was time
and that there would always be time
for what I had a mind to do
and what I could imagine
going back to and finding it
as I had found it the first time
but by this time I do not know
what I thought when I thought back then

there is no time yet it grows less
there is the sound of rain at night
arriving unknown in the leaves
once without before or after
then I hear the thrush waking
at daybreak singing the new song

–W.S. Merwin