Time

My original plan for this blog was to post twice a week. I even had a list of subjects and some rough drafts in the pipe so I could stay on top of it. Yeah, you can see how well that has worked out.

I haven’t written anything except in my private journal for weeks. There are lots of contributing factors – laziness and insecurity top the list. But there is another, better reason: time. Specifically, time spent with family and friends.

I think my last blog post was the week before Memorial Day. Since then we spent a couple of days at the Great Wolf Lodge

drove south 6 hours to celebrate my brother-in-law’s retirement,

came home and packed to go 7 hours the other direction to spend two weeks with friends in NE Washington while my husband painted their house and cabin.

Those two weeks I was mostly without internet access, so I wasn’t even on social media much. (Which by the way was a blessing.) Instead, I hung out with my friend and enjoyed a little farm life.

We came “home” (Home is wherever we park our trailer – for now that’s in Lewis County.) to appointments and more paint jobs for David. I spent the next two weeks playing with grandkids, taking a hike, helping out at a musical theater camp and enjoying the weather. Since my last blog there have been two wedding anniversaries, one birthday and baby girl learned to crawl. 🙂

Retirement has forced me to think about time in a different way. It’s easy to lose track of even what day of the week it is. Time can just slip by while I read or watch a movie. On the other hand, I can go to lunch or dinner with a friend and not be continuously watching the clock. Time doesn’t always equal “productivity” now. Instead, time is an investment in savoring relationships, in reveling in nature, in being “in the moment.” It’s one of the things I love most about this stage of life. So, forgive me if I don’t “produce” one or two blogs a week, or a month, I’m probably out spending time on what matters most to me.

While we were on our little Eastern Washington sabbatical, we watched the 1994 movie, I.Q. starring Meg Ryan and Walter Mathau. It’s one of our favorites. There is a scene where Edward (the romantic hero in the story) meets Katharine’s (the girl he’s in love with) uncle (who happens to be Albert Einstein) and his three brilliant friends. Einstein’s friends are having this existential argument about time, so they ask Edward, “So young man, do you think time exists?” Edward proceeds to tell about a story he read in Popular Science Magazine about twin brothers. One brother traveled in a space ship into space at the speed of light. The other brother stayed on earth. The astronaut brother returns years later and is still young while his brother is now an old man. Edward asks, “Which one do you think is happier?” The scientists all agree that the young brother must be happiest. Edwards says, “No. It’s the one who stayed on earth.” He goes on to explain, “The twin who stayed has had a full life and he’s had experiences and love and pain and he has a family and friends, and the one who left – well – time has just passed.” (If you want, you can watch the clip. The part I like starts at about :50 and goes to 1:47)

I don’t know about you, but I want to really live the remaining time that I’ve been given, I don’t want time to just pass.

For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11