Category Archives: time

I Have Started to Say

death, poetry, time, ,

The last stanza of this poem brings to mind the advice to “Die before you die.” It has been attributed to Rumi and to C.S. Lewis, and I’ve heard Orthodox Christians echo the saying. St. Paul said, “I die daily,” and also, “I am crucified with Christ.” Whatever all these people meant, our final death we are definitely instructed to keep in mind, and as the poet says, “learn” something about it — though it’s not clear that he was numbering his days in the Christian fashion.

But it was the second stanza that caught my attention here, Larkin’s description of the disorienting effect of considering time and ageing. The images capture what I often feel.

I HAVE STARTED TO SAY

I have started to say
“A quarter of a century”
Or “thirty years back”
About my own life.

It makes me breathless
It’s like falling and recovering
In huge gesturing loops
Through an empty sky.

All that’s left to happen
Is some deaths (my own included).
Their order, and their manner,
Remain to be learnt.

-Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin, by Humphrey Ocean

 

So much of any year is flammable.

calendar, poetry, time, ,

I hadn’t read this poem carefully since 2011 when I first posted it. Now that I consider it afresh, that last line about Things I Didn’t Do is haunting me again!

BURNING THE OLD YEAR

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye, born 1952, American poet

When when Maria Horvath posted this poem on her blog in 2011, she included the painting below, “Abstracto,” 1935 by Joan Miró

Theophanies into which we may enter.

calendar, church, quotes, time

As we close in on the end of the calendar year, our rector posted thoughts about the liturgical calendar in our parish bulletin. We Orthodox know at some level that the calendar of festal events and saints’ days “sanctifies time” — but do we live it fully? It’s not an easy thing to prioritize the “holy appointments,” as Fr. Stephen Freeman recently characterized them, in our lives that are typically super busy with various other activities. An excerpt:

This feast, this day, this time in my life, if I will keep the appointment, I can meet God. The feasts on the calendar are not appointments with memorials, the recollection of events long past. They are invitations to present tense moments in the liturgical life of the world. In those moments there is an intersection of the present and the eternal. They are theophanies into which we may enter. The events in Christ’s ministry that are celebrated (to use one example) are of little importance if viewed in a merely historical manner. It is not enough to say and remember that Christ died. The Christian faith is that I must become a partaker of Christ’s death. Christ is Baptized, but I must be a partaker of His Baptism. This is true of all the feasts and is the reason for our liturgical celebrations. The Church is not a memorial society—it is the living presence of Christ in the world and the primary means by which we may share in His presence. There is no time like the present, for only in the present does time open its riches to us and bestow its gifts.

Boredom, your window on undiluted time.

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“When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. The idea here is to exact a full look at the worst. The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor.

“Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one’s mental equilibrium. It is your window on time’s infinity. Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.”

― Joseph Brodsky

It’s interesting how metaphorical the poet Brodsky gets in this passage on boredom — and his metaphors are so physical. Boredom hits us, and crushes us. We sink under water, we hit bottom. Then we surface fast, and even when encountering a window, we don’t just look through it but throw it open. Take the bull by the horns, I might add. Don’t miss the opportunity — go for it!

It may be that my interest in boredom has something to do with its connection to Time. When we are experiencing the restless kind of boredom, it’s often because we think whatever we are doing is a waste of time, or at least that there might be a better use of our time than what has been given to us, what we are stuck doing. But Brodsky doesn’t see time that way, as something to use. We are beings in time, and just letting the seconds and minutes go by as we contemplate that reality — something splendorous — can reveal aspects of our existence that we might miss, if we keep ourselves constantly busy.

Contemplation is mental and hopefully spiritual work. Not laziness, not sloth. Possibly the opposite of sloth, which is another word for acedia. I still hope to explore the idea of acedia, but that will probably not happen soon. In the meantime, I’m growing bored with thinking about boredom. Here’s one last thought to contemplate:

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time;
serenity, that nothing is.
–Thomas Szasz