Savoring Time

 

Good morning.  I trust your day has begun well, and will end well.

 

As you know, last weekend was the annual Memorial Day celebration.  Many probably used the long weekend as a time to go to the lake, travel, or just relax.   Some used the weekend for its intended purpose…remembering those who have given their lives in service to the nation, and by extension remembering those of our families who have gone before.  The Plank family did some of both, as we usually do.  We visited several cemeteries, placing flowers and plants at the appropriate markers.  We visited about ancestors, recalling their service, their relationship to us, and telling stories about them.

We also gathered together as a family…32 of us by one count…all together.  Yes, it was raining for much of the day.  And so it was a good thing we gathered at a 5 bedroom ranch-style home with a full basement that was on about 3 acres of land with outbuildings and garages where we could be together.  We brought food, ate, told stories, played indoor games, and generally had a good day.

The other thing about the day on Monday was that it was the last day of the month of May.  That may seem to be a non-thing to you, but to me anyway, it was the recognition of the swiftness of the passing of the days.  May, 2021 is in the history books.  And before we know it, June will be gone, followed by July…then August.  The birthdays are coming entirely too quickly at this stage of life…I don’t have that many more to celebrate, and they’re coming all too fast for my liking.

As a child, I thought summers were pretty much endless.  School was out in mid-May, and there were endless days of childhood activities before having to go back to school in the fall.  But, as I got older, those days seemed to go by more and more quickly until now, it seems like those few days of summer quickly give way to fall and winter.  And in the process, one more birthday is marked off the calendar.

In less than three weeks, the sun will be at its most northern point in the sky, and the summer solstice will occur.  That means that the sun will then begin its travel back to the south, eventually bringing the onset of cooler weather and the winter.  It used to be, in my mind anyway, that the time between the equinoxes and solstices…about 90 days…was a long time.  Anymore, those days fly by with hardly time to recognize that they’ve come and gone.

So, as you go through your daily routine this day, stop for just a few minutes, get quiet, and savor the passage of time.  Maybe you will be in a place where you can hear a clock ticking off the seconds.  We have a grandfather clock we can hear in our house.  And if it’s quiet enough in my office, I can hear my wall clock tick the seconds as the second hand goes around.

Normally, this might be a place where I would insert words of vast wisdom and comfort.  However, I have no such words for you now.  Those words just aren’t coming to mind…rather, I’m hearing the ticking of the wall clock as it counts off the seconds…minutes…and hours in the day.  And I’m working on doing that savoring I mentioned a minute or so ago.  Sometimes that’s harder to do than it might seem.

It seems that right now, instead of savoring, I’m thinking of all of the things I haven’t had the time to do in the past few days…how I’m going to work those things in the next few days…and how many of those things may not get done at all.

Oh well, the thought of “savoring” was good, even if the implementation has been somewhat lacking.

May you receive blessing in abundance this day from the One who created time…and gives us the opportunities to make the most of the time we’ve been given.