Skip to main content

A Time Machine. How Depressing.

I hope this will be the last post about Facebook. I can't get over it's people locating abilities. I found people that I haven't talked to for 20 years! There was a time when I could say I haven't even been around that long--in three months I'll be forty. I'm not sure how old my perception is now. For a long time, at least until I was 25, I perceived myself to be 18, and then the perception changed because I felt as if people were actually listening to me. So I think I "felt" 28 for some length of time, but since then. . . .

In geological time, I ain't nothin', but in human marking of time 40 is a collective chunk of something. Seeing how so many people have aged isn't a memento mori, but it sure is a quake to my sensibilities. Where does that time go? No, I don't think it has sped by as too many people fall into the cliched habit of saying and experiencing. Time just moves at the same pace for me--sometimes to fast, sometimes too slow, but never always one or the other--mostly just whatever the chronological speed limit is.

I think two things have helped time pass in a steady manner for me--noticing the seasonal changes around me and following the liturgical calendar. Both help me focus intensely and allow time to just ontologically wash past me. Right now it's winter and (depending on how you count it) either Epiphany or a short round of Ordinary time. Outside the air is sharp, the neighborhood is quieter, except for the days lots of kids are sledding at Lola Valley. Only a few species of birds visit, squirrels the only wild mammals visible. Occasionally a hawk perches in the naked trees. The snow hides the anticipation of green explosions. Now we celebrate the baptism of Jesus or we wait for the desert time of Lent. Anything else is just mindless busyness.

Wendell Berry said "To see and respect what is there is the first duty of stewardship." He was talking about ecosystems, but I think he'd agree with me that time falls under that duty. To let 20 years pass by without reflection, care, notice is simply bestial. I'm sorry I lost contact with those people. But I'm glad I found them again. O happy time machine!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mystery Meat indeed!

During my grocery shopping today I was asked to pick up some hot dogs for some meal or other. Now I am not an aficianado of the 'ot dog, but will usually have a corn dog or BBQed version of one or two during the summer. If my children like them, so be it. The trouble came when trying to find a package that didn't arrive from a chemistry lab. Nitrates and nitrites, sugars (including HFCS), the preservative sodium benzoate, and other fun substances littered every package I picked up. Even Hebrew National which "Answers to a Higher Standard" was doped. Apparently Kosher doesn't mean it can't be injected with a chemical cocktail. So-called "Natural Casings" were prominently displayed to catch my eye. As if sheep or pig intestine somehow offsets Agricorps tinkering. I ended up buying the brand "sold at Tiger Stadium" not because it was chemical-free, Hell no! It was merely the brand with the least additives. Why does a hot dog need su...

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Shutting Down the Shop

  It's been a good run, sort of. I don't see much traffic here these days, partly because I only post occasionally. But I think in some ways, blogs as they are, have become quasi-obsolete. I'm not, however, giving up writing. I'm moving. To a Substack. This one : Pilgrim of the Sweetwater Seas.  So, if you're inclined. Check it out. Subscribe--it's free until I get a certain number of subscribers (and I'm not even close to that number yet).  Anyway, thanks Blogspot for the opportunity way back in the Oughts to do this.  Maybe I'll see you, reader, over at the Pilgrim site?