If we’ve learned nothing at all in recent years – and there is an argument to be made that we have not learned anything – it’s that more than one thing can be true at the same time. That’s the challenge facing any thinking person during an election, watching the news or observing their own lives. For me, right now, it’s a challenge during Advent, the Christian tradition of anticipating Christmas.
I think often of a principle(pal) we studied in seminary, the idea that some religions consider time to be linear – with a beginning, a middle and an end. The notion that human experience is moving toward an end time and the consequences it will bring. Time marches on. In other traditions, time is considered to be cyclical, that life returns over and over again to a starting point. Time moves in cycles. In my own life, facing abbreviated but still daunting to do lists for Christmas and a coming trip to Israel, I find myself searching for moments when time stands still. Quiet early morning or late evening moments sitting in the dark with my lighted Christmas tree. Catching glimpses of stars in the clear dark sky through the bathroom window. Staring at snow falling on a quiet Sunday morning. I am embracing those moments, knowing they will be rare in the coming days, but trying to file them away in hopes that their memories serve to slow me down, if not stop me in my tracks. Time is complicated. It marches on, it cycles through, it stands still. All three can be true at once.
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