Entering into Eternal Time
In Latin, the season of Lent is called “Quadragesima” meaning “fortieth”. For Christians, this refers to the 40 days of Lent before Easter. It’s an invitation to slow down, go inward, and go deeper.
“Cast your net out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” (Luke 5:4)
I thought I would take this opportunity talk about going deeper as we age for deeper living. What all faith traditions speak about as the journey of transformation, of becoming whole, is when we stop running from here to there, and we live from inside to out. John O’Donohue, an Irish poet, author, priest, philosopher, said, “Spiritual journey is 5 feet long and 500 miles deep.”
My retired colleague told me that there are Three Stages of Retirement: Go Go, Slow Go, No Go. As we age we start to realize, there are many things to do, and there’s nothing to do. While there’s many places to go, there’s nowhere to go. And the center of gravity in our life shifts. Shift is from “doing” to “being”. Doing less and going deeper. As we slow down, we get to savor more. Yes, there are more places to go, but why isn’t being here wonderful enough? Why can’t I be a 100 percent here on this land, on this river? Having the life you want by being present to the life you already have.
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016), a poet-philosopher, songwriter and singer, was asked in his later life by an interviewer what he saw as his greatest accomplishment. His answer was intriguing: “When I learned to accept my lot.” What I love about Cohen’s answer is that he is talking about the heavenly pivot when we start to inhabit heaven on earth, not by going anywhere, but by being more fully here.
In the world of meditation, stopping the noise is not the same thing as entering silence, and slowing down is not the same thing as entering time. What I mean by that is we are always, especially in our modern age, worshiping speed. Consequently, we skim through life on the surface. And then we don’t feel connected to life. So then we move faster. But what’s really needed is to simply slow down, stop, and be still. And that is how we “enter time” and not just move through time.
I know a good example of this. When I’m working in my study and so absorbed in what I am doing, I am entering time, I am in the timeless zone, the eternal NOW, the God’s time. These are moments when whatever we’re doing, we could be gardening, woodworking, daydreaming, meditating, lost in thoughts, whatever. And all of a sudden, we go, whoa, two hours went by. It felt like a minute. What happened?
That’s because we are inhabiting what I would call the eternal time that informs everything. This is why William Blake said you could find eternity in a grain of sand. And when you give your full heart’s attention to it, it can become a portal to the whole universe. The 14th century Indian saint and a mystical poet, Kabir, said, “Wherever you are is the entry point.”
Grace and Peace,
John
