Time
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Measuring time is easy and we all generally have agreement on how we measure time. Measuring time into minutes, hours, days, seasons allows us to gather, on occasion from around the globe in the exact same moment to meet, to talk, to reflect, to share, to be with one another. I am grateful for that innovation of measuring time that enables us to create time and space to share together. My earlier reflection on place lead me to the reflect on the famous opening from Ecclesiastes:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Though I know these lines of poetry not as from the Tanakh but rather from the song by Pete Seeger which I recall first hearing in a recording by either Judy Collins or Peter, Paul, and Mary (though the second link takes you to YouTube and Collins singing “Turn, Turn, Turn” again. I cannot seem to find a recording of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Perhaps they did not record it, and I am having a memory fail.) Like many songs remembered from childhood, the tune and the lyrics provide great comfort. Almost a primitive reassurance. When I read the words, however, and see the stark contrasts, I wonder what was comforting about it as a child, other than the tune, the sweet clarity of the voices of Collins or the trio? There is obviously nothing reassuring about a time to die, a time to hate, or a time to kill.
The lyrics themselves suggest the conflicts and struggles that we face as humans. What they do not suggest or explain is how do we know when the time has arrived? There is no giant clock to tell us, now is the time to kill, the time to mourn, the time to lose. That to me is the vexing aspect of time. We can tell time using clocks, watches, or more often now computers and telephones, but how do we mark time? How do we know when the time is right for various activities, milestones, or events? What tells us, this is the time for love and this the time for hate?
The seasons overlap or morph and run in together. Here is Florida, the planning begins in late November and in late December, the strawberry harvest began. Tonight they are cold on the vines. It will go down to forty-five degrees. This morning it was forty-two when we woke at six am. It was too cold outside for even Tibe to sit. He knew it was not the time for sitting and running, but I wonder, how? How did he know? How are we to know when it is the time to sow, the time to reap?
Though a friend on Facebook just lost her beloved dog, Idgie, after many years of companionship. She knew when it was time, both she, the friend, and she Idgie, the dog. But how? There is no clock and no calendar to tell us when it is the time to die. How can we understand time when the big things, the important things are not marked and an easy, accessible way?
Ecclesiastes tells us there is “a time to every purpose under the heaven” but finding that time and knowing when it is is basically an article of faith. Faith that there is a time to every purpose and faith that we will recognize that time when it arrives.
A little over a year ago, a friend of a friend died of heart failure. It was sudden and he was young, just forty-eight years old. The other week, I called my father for the details about the death of a friend of his. He did not know he had died; I learned of his death on Facebook. My father’s friend was in his early eighties. A time to be born and a time to die. Sure, but the time to be born is always the beginning, with a vast amount of time in front of you and a system to measure that time in days and years. The time to die on the other hand seems random at best, without purpose at worst.
It would be easy to write here, to every thing, turn, turn, turn. As though the lyrics explain both the complete incomprehensibility of it all as well as the injustice. And for the faithful, it does. Or at least from the perspective of this apostate, it does for the faithful.
In the Friday evening Shabbat service, one of the prayers affirms that G!d separates day from night, the daily from the holy, work from Shabbat. I will speak those words, but I do not believe them. For me, the questions remain. How do we separate day from night? Work from play? Sleep from awake? How do we know when the time has come to sow, to reap, to be born, to die, to love, to hate. We may agree how to mark time and it’s passage with our calendars, our watches, our schedules, but the big questions of time, of its utter incomprehensibility, it’s capricious engagements with us humans, it’s limits, it’s expanses, on those questions of time, we are without any answers. We can agree how we mark time’s passage but on the more important questions such as how much time do we have, how can we organize the time that remains, how do we know the season, how do we discern the purpose under heaven, there are no answers, no agreements, only silence, or an old familiar tune with comforting lyrics on first blush but under close examination only marks of pain and contradiction. Turn, turn, turn.
