Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it–how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren’t adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on humanity's struggle with the passage of time, suggesting our souls yearn for a connection to eternity.
Sheldon Vanauken's quote articulates a profound discomfort that people experience with time. Despite countless generations living through it, we often feel alienated from its passage, constantly questioning where it has gone and how it moves. This struggle and disconnection may imply that there is a different existence, one of eternity, which feels more like our true home. The quote invites contemplation on our relationship with time and eternity.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of time during a philosophy class.
…though I wouldn’t have admitted it, even to myself, I didn’t want God aboard. He was too heavy. I wanted Him approving from a considerable distance. I didn’t want to be thinking of Him. I wanted to be free—like Gypsy. I wanted life itself, the color and fire and loveliness of life. And Christ now and then, like a loved poem I could read when I wanted to. I didn’t want us to be swallowed up in God. I wanted holidays from the school of Christ.
You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That's how prayer works.
Come into the silence of solitude, and the vibration there will talk to you through the voice of God.
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.
Here is a humanist proposition for the age of Google: The processing of information is not the highest aim to which the human spirit can aspire, and neither is competitiveness in a global economy. The character of our society cannot be determined by engineers.
Mary's life was a perfect imitation of Jesus. She was humble, hidden, sorrowful and afflicted, but she also knew joys that never entered the heart of man. She is all things to all men that she might understand their failings, though she failed not.
The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark. When you look closely, the twenty-four hour day is framed into a moment; the still-life of the jerky amphetamine world. That woman-a pieta. Those men, rough angels with an unknown message. The children holding hands, spanning time. And in every still-life, there is a story, the story that tells you everything you need to know.
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