I tend to treat Time like a container, with carefully measured increments marked on the outside so I know how much life can fit inside. If something fits into my Time jar, then it fits. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't. There's only so many hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year, years in a lifetime. Time is a precious resource, so it needs to be measured, guarded, valued.
This is, of course, good and true.
This is, of course, good and true.
(Except when it's not).
At the camp in Latvia I've been going to for the past goodness-knows-how-many years, Time somehow transubstantiates from container to content. The things which you would normally have to fit into your Time jar become, instead, the jar which Time is then made to fit into.
There is a camp schedule which is posted, with times listed for the various events and activities of the day. But as the week progresses, you begin to realize that the times are more fluid than solid, melding and morphing around the actual camp, instead of forcing the camp to fit into them.
And as Time passes by, you realize that it's still a valuable thing. But other things start to gain their proper value over and above Time. Things like Relationships. Conversations. People. Events, games and meals are allowed to go on until they're finished. The sequence becomes more important than specific time when something occurs. When is Bible study? After breakfast. When are games? Before lunch. When is lunch?
Next.
As pretty a picture as I might be painting now, it's far from the utopian paradise it might appear to be from the outside. Like, when you're hungry, and desperately wondering how long a wait it will be until the next meal, and the only answer you get is "Lunch? It's next."¹
Next? When's Next?
But even then, if you stop and think about it,² next is the only time when anything can ever occur. Sure, you can give Next a number, or a configuration of the arms on a clock face, but the soonest anything can be is next.
Time is valuable. And it deserves to be measured, guarded, and valued. But as valuable as Time is, people, relationships, conversations, and even some events and moments and meals, are far more valuable still.
Jesus entered into Time so that he could be with people. Allowed his timelessness to be trapped in the container of Time, to let his limitless self be limited. But - and here's the important thing which I need to keep reminding myself - in the midst of his urgent, frantic, full life, with an end date and place firmly in mind, he always found time for people. And not even just people, plural, but a person. A person is always worth pausing for.
Camp time is imperfect. Lunch is often late, and sometimes things don't happen when they should, if at all. But the beauty is that in that week, in that place, People become the container. And somehow, Time manages to fit in just fine when it's all said and done.
²Which you should only do after lunch.
