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About Time About
Time Just
the other day it dawned on me that I have finally reached middle age. The
first sign was that my children and my clothes are the same age. The thing
about reaching middle age is that if you have any brains left at all, you
start to realize you’re running out of time. Time to do things you vowed
you’d do back when you were twenty-four. And so, one sunny Saturday, you
find yourself behind a 16,000-hp ski boat being steered by a former high
school friend named Attila, hanging onto a towrope, trying to avoid
fishing boats and beads of water that smack you in the eyes like buckshot.
“What
the world am I doing?” you’re screaming, and Attila thinks you want
him to speed up.
Every
few weeks I get together with five other middle-aged guys for something we
call the Circle of Six. It’s an eating group, really, though we founded
it with grander plans. The group has been growing (pun intended) for a
dozen years now, thanks to some incredible cheesecake of our own making,
and as we hit the middle years, I noticed that some of us are engaging in
activities we wouldn’t have dreamed of back when we had our minds.
For
instance, one of the guys (I won’t name names, but I will tell you that
Ron Nickel receives this guy’s credit card statements) bought a
high-powered motorcycle, then sold it when he came within a whisker of
crashing. Another took up hang-gliding and limped to our meeting a few
weeks ago, holding his lower back and making sounds somewhat akin to those
of an overworked mule. (Again, I wouldn’t dream of telling you his name,
but for the sake of this article, we’ll call him Vance Neudorf.)
We
got to sitting around the fire, the six of us, talking of things we
intended to do when we were younger but haven’t because we’ve been
held back by time. Or our loving wives. Or our insurance agents.
“I’d
like to cycle across the country,” said one. Everyone nodded.
“Garden
with my wife,” said another. Everyone gasped.
One
even confessed that he’d like to learn the ukulele and give concerts. I
won’t tell you who it was, but we found this funny too.
Then
came stories of parents who had grand plans for an adventuresome
retirement, who salted away money for travel only to discover that
they’d run out of health once they got there; they’d run out of time.
I
guess we spend our early years wishing time would hurry up, our middle
years trying to find more of it, and our latter years wondering where in
the world it went. We get so busy with the blur of schedules and the stuff
of earth that we neglect the celebration of today.
Time
is one versatile guy. It flies. It heals all wounds. Time can be wasted.
Time will tell. Time marches on. Time runs out. Everywhere in the Western
world are reminders of time. We have clocks on our wrists and our cell
phones, our stereos and dashboards, on street signs and buildings. We
dangle clocks around our necks, in our pockets, and in every room of the
house. One day archaeologists will dig up our stuff and say, “Hey, they
must have worshipped these things. Stand back, this one’s still
ticking.”
Some
people are very organized when it comes to time. They write down lists of
things they will do with their day. That way, they don’t have to spend
time remembering things; they can spend their time looking for the paper
they wrote the list on.
To avoid the avalanche of time, middle-agers: Buy
juicers Yogacize Nip Tuck Wear
Spandex Medicate Diet Visit
4.5 million “anti-aging” websites Try another diet, one that “really works” We
are constantly trying to make up for lost time. We rush about as if
we’re going to find it somewhere, hoping all the while that time is on
our side. We get so stressed out we start drinking Maalox like it’s
gravy. We wonder, What would it be
like to slow down? And if we slow down, will we have a nervous breakdown? Materialism
and speed have doused the fire in our souls, and summertime should remind
us to go looking for matches.
“Teach
us to number our days, so that we may be wise,” wrote the psalmist. And
if we number them, we just may find that we don’t have enough time left
for petty stuff like discussing someone else’s failures. Or how the
soloist should have tuned up before
If
we find those matches and reignite that fire in our souls, we will
discover that time is precious; that we should spend it brightening
someone’s day, helping those less privileged, loving the forgotten, and
gazing into the night sky. After all, no matter our age, we have less time
than we think. Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is an assumption, and this
moment that we say we have…just passed.
A
wise friend says, “How you spend your time is more important than how
you spend your money. Make a mistake with money and it can be fixed, but
time is gone.”
As
a follower of Jesus, I believe we are stewards of whatever God gives us,
including the days we have left. Because of Jesus we are promised the
riches of eternity where time will be extinct, but for now we are allowed
the riches of today. I’d like to spend my remaining days spreading grace
and joy around. Who knows? I might even sign up for those ukulele lessons,
after all.
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singing
last Sunday. We won’t have time to whine and complain that the previous
generation got it wrong and the next generation doesn’t get it at all.
We won’t have time for things that are really ugly and disgusting,
including much of what’s on tabloids and television. We won’t have
time to sit around comparing what can’t be taken to the next world.
Things like bank accounts, titles, and achievements. 