Neil Mancor's 2nd Blog entry in response to the Pandemic
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Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. William Shakespeare, Macbeth
“There is a time for everything,” writes the Sage,“ and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die”. Countless times I have used these words at funerals to convey a sense of God in the whole of life from the beginning to its end. But these words do not seem right for the time we find ourselves in now. Lives being cut short before their time, so much of the world coming to a standstill. There is a time for everything – but not this, not now.
Time is hanging very differently these days. Until recently my days were neatly divided up into different compartments all designed to keep time moving quickly: get up, get ready, take the train, go to work, go to the gym, back to work, home, go out again. Every day the routine was repeated the time would be filled. Until now. Until this time. I don’t know what to do with this time, this moment we are in. Time came crashing in for me over the weekend but especially on Monday last week. I still went into work as usual, still clinging to the old time. Then it shifted. I came home with a large bag of everything I would need for a prolonged stay at home. I even tidied up my desk and as I closed the door to my office I stepped into this time. Now moves with a different rhythm for us all.
Have you ever noticed how time is so often viewed as a commodity to be spent wisely and invested appropriately as if it were a financial transaction? It even has a morality of its own: we certainly do not want to waste time as if it were a precious metal or something. After all time flies. The key to time is not spending it but investing it wrote Stephen R. Covey. I really admire Stephen Covey and this sounds like great advice but right now it just feels exhausting to imagine having to invest time all the…time. Better to have a cup of tea. There is a lot of wisdom in cups of tea.
Or time is like a living twitching being which can be slayed like a dragon. After all, we’re just killing time, we say when we are doing nothing much. I imagine time lying at my feet twitching in its death throes having been vanquished at last. Yet in fact surely it is time that is the vanquisher, pulling me along in its wake. I do not quite know what to do in this time where so much is happening and nothing at all – at the same time.
One friend suggested helpfully: maybe this is the end times. I don’t even want to go there.
I should use this time well. I should take the extra time that has opened up to improve my French, do some chores around the house. I should pray and draw closer to God in this time. Theological students love discovering the Kairos sense of time in the Scriptures. This moment now. The ordained moment. Here it is: a time God has given us. But I refuse to see this as an instrument God has engineered for me to pay attention or improve my spiritual life or become a better person or for us as a species to wake up and realize we need to go back to Church. This time is not about me or you but about us all as a species in peril.
We have been pitched into an unending present moment. We cannot see when it will end and normal time will reassert itself and we will all go back to the way it was. But we won’t go back to the way it was because life can never be the same again and after all, time waits for no one. There is no time there is only now. Right now people are dying and others are sick. Right now others are losing their jobs and many are scared. Right now I am trying to find the words to pray but find only silence.
But perhaps what the Scriptures do help us do is put this time in the context of God’s vast eternalness. For there is a time for everything under heaven. And God is in it all. It it is God who can hold this time in His eternal changelessness and maybe that can help me move from the time that was and enter what is with a measure of grace. After all, there’s no better time than the present!
Neil’s Digital Calendar – in Response to the Pandemic
Monday Weekly Blog Post published on website / social media
Tuesday 11am “Neil’s Let’s Talk” via Zoom All Welcome
Tuesday 7pm Compline on FB Live
Thursday 7pm Revive Group via Zoom Closed Group
Friday 10am “Clergy Connect” via Zoom Diocese of Montreal Clergy Blog Discussion / peer support
Sunday 7pm Compline on FB Live All Welcome
