The Time Between

There’s a space in my travels back and forth around the planet

where I really do not know what time it is. 

My psyche doesn’t register as being in any one time zone.  I’m all wonked out.  Normally it hits me on the layover.  They’ll announce the local time on the plane just before we land.  It will even show on the clocks in the airport.  But it’s not real time for me. 

I’m in between.

This is not yet jet lag.  That will come as I spin my way through the first week home.  No, this is something else.  Something in between.  Just this time-weirdness for a little bit when I’m not sure where I am, what day it is, where I’ve been, where I’m going, ......who I am. 

Plus, in the case when I’m on my way home, I’m tired and all wrung out from the goodbye. 

Time is such a ‘thing’. 

In a previous life (aka up until May 27 of this year) I never had enough of it.   Any semblance of ‘balance’ or ‘Sabbath’ was valiantly wrestled from the grips of a schedule full of expectation and responsibility, and sometimes crisis.   The only sustained experience of something slower happened on vacation up at the cottage, or, ironically, in Thailand, as weird as the travelling bit is.

Both at the cottage and in Thailand there’s a different capture of time.

At the cottage there’s really no place to go.  That sounds terrifying to some of you, I know.  But for me it means a complete day – a string of days actually – when I can let the rhythms of the day carry me from moment to moment without any sense of urgency, any pressure to be anywhere at any given....time.  So if the kayak paddle around the island takes a little longer, no worries.  If lunch happens a little later, no problem.  If I get engrossed in some reading or some planning or some study or some writing, oh well.  I am not expected to be anywhere, so, I can take my....time.

In Thailand, time is a different thing than it is at home.  Event-oriented cultures walk slower, gather more gradually, allow for delays, embrace each moment in ways Western thinkers don’t even know happens on the planet.  There is patience.  No one rushes you.  In fact, if at any moment I appear to be in a hurry because I think someone is waiting on me, I am gently and lovingly chided with “Ahajahn Root.  Jai yen yen.”  Settle down your heart, is what it literally means. 

And over the years, both these spaces have taught me much about how I engage time;  the good ways and the not so good.

I’m more than a week back from my last trip, and jet lag is done.  But in these last few days at the cottage (for now, back up in September to close), I am starting to be more aware of something.  As I start to set up appointments and put other events on the calendar for the months ahead, as my list gets a little longer and I’m planning out what my new life, my new schedule is going to look like ‘back in the city’, I realize this whole past three months has been like sitting in the airport on the layover.

One long layover.   Not in a bad way though.  Rather in a very, very good, needed, healing measure of time.

I arrived at the beginning of June and endured a state of weirdness for a bit, where I wasn’t sure where I was, what day it was, where I’d been, where I was going, ......who I am. 

Plus, leaving Highview, like leaving Thailand, had me tired and all wrung out from the goodbye. 

But in the gift of this time....

Time to rest.

Time to recover.

Time to reflect.

Report.

Read.

Reset for this new thing....

I waited.

And it worked.

Jai yen yen.  My heart has had the chance to settle down.

And while I will always miss components of my life as a pastor in a local church,

And while this necessary time away from gathering in worship there is still difficult

I think I now have a better grasp of who I am in this new space of life,

How much it actually means to me to be available to God for this,

All the many joys and blessings of it.

I think, I say slowly to myself, I think, I am going home happy.

I think....

 the in between ....

is done.

And in this still-quiet space of water and rock

 which itself is such a gift,

I can listening so deeply and un-distractedly

to the Voice of the One who loves me best,

I think I hearing Him saying ....

It’s time.

The psalmist expresses well my sense of settled-ness right now.

Psalm 131

My heart is not proud, LORD

My eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

Or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed and quieted myself,

I am like a weaned child with her mother;

Like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the LORD

Both now and forevermore.