It's easy to get confused about time. We run late, show up early and forget to set our clocks ahead or behind. I keep the clock in my truck running fast so I'm a little more likely to be places on time...or or maybe feel guiltier about being late.
I can't count the times when I've been running behind and thought, "I wasn't made for this." I've been wrong about a lot of things, but I'm right about that.
When I say "I wasn't made for this," I don't mean that I'm not made for schedules or that there's too much to do. My problem's a lot bigger. Time is broken and our idea of it is even more broken. I'm not made for broken time. Not a second of it.
The love of money might be the root of all evil but it's really time that commands our deepest lust. We want more time so that we can do what we want, feel relaxed, not have to rush, work to get more money so we can buy more time to do more of what we want with the time we "have." Having a lot of time also makes us feel safe, like we're going to live forever.
Conversely, we may want time to pass faster so we can put the unpleasant thing that's making time seem to crawl go away. We'd could do everything we wanted if we just had the time...to do what we want. Time's a great spinning pain that causes the hands on our clocks to bear an unpleasant resemblance to the blades in a blender spinning set on high.
A few years ago I was paying attention to the time as I barbequed outside after dark. Our family likes the meat done but not too done...gotta watch the time. Around that time of my life, I'd been studying some constellations and the stars that compose them. To pass the time until I needed to turn over the steak, I was looking at Orion. Orion is my favorite constellation. I miss him in the summer when he runs off and hides below the night horizon, hunting after something I can't see.
Orion has a great many stars that compose his form. I could try and show off and tell you how many stars make up that particular constellation. However, virtually any number I'd pick would be wrong. That's because at least one of the "stars" that typically define the constellation is actually a nebula, containing a lot of gas and likely hundreds of thousands of stars. There's a globular cluster or two in the general vicinity as well, so you could pop the count up into the millions (possibly hundreds of millions) and be a lot closer to being right than if you said eight or so. Orion is tricky that way; he isn't what he looks like at all...even if you're an ancient Greek making things up.
The light from Orion that arrives in the Northern hemisphere of earth every winter represents a wild variety of age. Some of the light is arriving a scant 240 years after the reaction that created it. The light from the close edge of the Great Nebula that defines part of Orion's sword is about 1500 years old.
Of course, there's light in both the summer and winter skies that's much older than anything from Orion. Every night sky is a bath in ancient fire that was created at virtually all possible moments between everlasting and everlasting. At night we can step outside, look up and see the most distant possible moments of history.
We were created for seeing such things, wondering over them and eventually discovering our place in a context that includes the edges of forever hiding in the night sky.
I'm writing this on Easter Sunday. A little less than 2000 years ago, about a 100 or so years before the oldest light you'll see tonight from Orion, just before he runs off and hides from summer, Jesus created a God-human super nova that fundamentally changed our realities forever. God invites us back to him with the vast wonder of all creation, including Orion and much more. This particularly includes the wonder of our own creation. Each of us is created and intended for timeless love and friendship with God and each other. Each of us is a complement to the beautiful and eternal whole.
Christ lives. He's not just in the night sky. He's not just for 2000 years ago and he's not just for a feeling we have right now. Because of the way he made us, we're not for any of that either. We were created as part of the ancient fire. We wandered off into darkness. Two thousand years ago, Christ left the fire to go and find us and give us a direction back. He made that sacrifice so we'd know love and not have to worry about whether we're early or late or if we have enough time left. He invites us to learn that the past and future through and with him is all a great, complete, beautiful now. Happy Easter.
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