How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now

by James K.A. Smith

Given our histories, our bodies plot stories we can’t always live out. We carry habitualities that are anachronistic, out of joint with the time in which we find ourselves. Because we swim in time’s flow, our bodies bring habits of intention and desire that don’t always align with our present—sometimes they are misaligned with our present version of ourselves. These might be trauma responses harbored from a past life that are wildly out of place in our present, and yet they persist, puzzling those around us. But it could also be an inclination to prayer that catches us off guard because we thought we had left the faith long ago. Or we might pick up the phone to call a friend, seeking communion, only to eventually remember that they died eight months ago. Or we relate to our children as we always have—as fierce protectors, moral guides, life directors—even though they’re now in their thirties and need something different from us. It’s not just that the past is with us, but that it persists in ways that grate against our present. This is why you can’t go home again:8 because the you that arrives is not the you that left, and the home you left is not the home to which you return.