I've done it twice now.
In this last month leading up to my first trip back to Thailand in a looooooonnnnng time, I've shortchanged myself from an entire week. Once when writing out my weekly list, and once when mapping out prep work for the sermon/report I'll be giving to Highview on October 30th (the day before I leave). In each case, I've actually 'dropped' seven whole days and mentally pressed the prep into a smaller segment of time.
This is a good problem. At least, way better than making the opposite mistake. When I realized it again yesterday, there was a little rush of 'yay' in receiving what, by virtue of my confusion, seemed to me now a bonus.
Oh! Great! Not quite so much pressure. I'll take it.
But it's a weird sensation. The same kind of weirdness depicted in any story about time travel, or time folding over itself, or 'wrinkling' or standing still, or any manner by which humans explore their fascination with time.
Maybe we're all in that state these days anyways.
What sensation of time have we known these past two and a half years? Hasn't 'blursday' sort of smudged out over the entire pandemic by now? Without regular markers and celebrations, particularly in the broader scope of 'annually', does it even feel like two years have gone by? Has it gone by really slowly? Really fast? Or has it all just sort of turned to mush in our memories?
For anyone measuring any kind of growth or productivity in any arena of life and work, does it feel like a lot of time's been wasted? Did we put plans and visions on hold, and are we now just taking stock to survey all that did NOT get accomplished?
This is where I am most naturally wired up to go. I like efficiency. I hate wasting time. The phrase 'killing time' sounds criminal to me. Yes, yes, we need to rest and sabbath and care for our own souls. I know this. I do this. But overall, over a two plus years period of whatever it is we're counting here, something surely has to have happened! Surely there's something I can look to as having been completed, or progressed, or even just started. Pu-leeeese!
Ironically, it's the very work that God has called me to, in these latter years of my life, that helps bring some answers, some balance, and hopefully more maturity (I mean, really) to how I interact with time. Beyond the very wild weirdness of flying ahead trhough time zones (believe me, that still messes with me a little), Thai culture is 'event-oriented' not 'time-oriented', as we are so much more prone to be here in the West. Especially me. Being there - which I am longing for - is such a good immersion in a gentler, less controlling way of moving through any given day. It's like there's a general communal understanding that all things happen 'at the proper time'.
This is why, even with all the strange traffic congestion and free-style way of driving, there is rarely an angry beeping of a horn. It's remarkable.
This is why when you ask when something will start, there seems to be a bit of confusion, because whatever it is starts when everyone is there. And it ends with it's over.
This is why if you're the last person gathering your things before getting in the car to go somewhere, no one is annoyed with you. Truly. They only seem upset if you start to rush about. Because...we have time. We always seem to have time.
I wonder if the fine folks in Galatia were dipping forward into a more modern, Westernized frustration on these things. Or maybe they were just genuinely discouraged by whatever circumstances prompted Paul to write his letter to them.
"Do not grow weary in doing good," he comforts them. "For at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9 emphasis added)
Coincidentally, or maybe not so, this is one of the verses we have learned together at Hot Springs during the ESL portion of our Bible times in the evenings. I could hear their strong young voices in my head as I write out the words just now.
At the proper time. Of course, it's God's call on this. It's His time, not ours that's 'proper', timely, perfect. All we have to do is keep on doing good.
I pause here to let that sink in....for me.
Things are coming along nicely in all the trip preparations, by the way. One of two happy bonuses of my scheduling error is that I am well in hand (at least at this point) to have everything ready and packed well before the October 31st departure date.
The other happy bonus? This moment to reflect again on Who is really in charge. In charge of outcomes. In charge of time. In charge of me. And it's okay. He's got the time.
