Observe and honor time differently

	Tom Rinkoski

The doctor said my first grandchild's due date is March 7, but what does he know? In essence, all he can do is mathematics, and real time is not math. There is a sort of tyranny in measuring time that way.

Lent
• Lent-related articles  • 2003 Lenten Wish List  • Lenten rules (2/28 issue)

Clocks and calendars ought to be tools to help us plan our lives, not instruments that run our lives. On the job, in school, even at home we have become virtual slaves to our schedules.

Didn't Jesus say that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath? Some moments hold onerous obligations, others wonderful opportunities. But most fall somewhere in between. My spiral-bound black calendar, which I carry around with me everywhere, maps out my life in quarter-hour allotments. Sometimes I fear I am not leading a life so much as following a dizzying timetable of duties, commitments and demands.

It takes a baby's imminent arrival to remind me that life is bigger than a schedule! A baby's arrival is timed by contractions. And contractions are not the same as clock time. Ask any mother. Ask any father trying to time them.

Some days sail along. I make connections with people, conversations are interesting, and the presentations I offer make sense both to me and to the people listening.

But there are other days, on which the terrain of time is substantially different. These are the days when I cannot reach a single person on the phone; the programs that were almost together fall apart at the seams; and my dog doesn't even greet me when I come home.

Time is never just 24 clock hours. Our time is full of Lents, Easters, Christmases and Epiphanies. Pregnancy is a season of time whose non-specific beginning and ending boggles the odds-makers but keeps maternity wards awake and aware regardless of the time of day. When the contractions stopped, Audrey cried, but there was nothing that can be done when your world is being measured by contraction time.

Babies ignore the clock. Lovers have no sense of time either. In fact nothing kills passion faster than noticing time. It is the clock striking midnight that dashes the love affair between Cinderella and Prince Charming.

I lose track of time when I am listening to my favorite music, just like when I was much younger and bounced up and down to the rock 'n' roll coursing through the radio.

So here's my No. 1 suggestion for loosening the grip of the clock on your remaining Lenten Time. Take some of the duct tape you recently purchased and cover up the clock on your automobile dashboard. Use several pieces. Consider each time you get in the car your own personal retreat. Pay attention to each moment, every turn of the wheel. Stealing a thought from that Toyota commercial -- shift your attention, shift your attitude, shift into Lent.

Suggestion No. 2. Honor the mundane. When asked how your day went, we usually spill the headlines -- the big meeting with the boss, a superb meal, quality time with the kids. All the while we ignore the minutes and hours in between. But, the in-between moments are the bulk of your life. That is when your seven-year-old turns into a 16-year-old.

Practice being present to the sacred in the ordinary this Lent. A Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh says: "If I am incapable of washing dishes joyfully, wanting to finish them quickly so I can go and have dessert, I will be equally incapable of enjoying my dessert. With the fork in my hand, I will be thinking about what to do next, and the texture and flavor of the dessert, together with the pleasure of eating it, will be lost."

Take time this week to honor the small moments that usually pass you by. Be fully inside each "Hello!" you say. Accept each idea you have as a grace from God, then give it joyfully to another, expecting nothing. For every smile you receive this week, say a prayer of thanks to the God who created the bearer of the smile.

The baby will be born when the time is right and not a moment sooner. Lent will come for you when the time is right and not a minute sooner.

(Rinkoski is the Green Bay Diocese's Family Life director and a professional story-teller.)