A Prayer About Time (part three), Again

My final reposting of Robert Banks's "A Prayer About Time," from his book The Tyranny of Time, is appropriately preceded by the thoughts that were in my head when I originally posted it a couple of years ago. I invite you to comment on the prayer, the navel-gazing, or your own thoughts/experiences of time as sacred experience:

As I think about the purpose of Loud Time, I'm realizing that it demands a lot more self-discipline than I can muster up on my own. I'm purportedly writing about "all things loud and timely," which should give me plenty of ground to cover, but then I fall into navel-gazing and trolling for compliments. . . . Then again, loud time as a sacred practice--which is where I hope to get--is the negotiation of several I's following one big Thou. Or something like that. That's one reason I like comments--it's accountability and virtual mutual affirmation all in one. I am not the center of the universe in Loud Time, but I certainly am one occupant.

Enjoy this third and final section of the prayer about time. It's hopeful and circumspect at the same time, which is a good way for all of us to be. A blessing on your head.

Guard us against attempting too much

because of a false sense of our indispensability,

a false sense of ambition,

a false sense of rivalry,

a false sense of guilt,

or a false sense of inferiority:

yet do not let us mistake our responsibilities,

underestimate ourselves,

fail to be stimulated by others,

overlook our weaknesses,

or know our proper limits.

Enable us also to realise that

important though this life is,

it is not all,

that we should view what we do

in the light of eternity,

not just our limited horizons,

that we ourselves have eternal life now.

God our Father, you are not

so much timeless as timeful,

you do not live above time so much as

hold "all times . . . in your hand",

you have prepared for us a time

when we will have leisure

to enjoy each other and you to the full,

and we thank you, appreciate you

and applaud you for it.

Amen

A Prayer About Time, Again (Part Two)

Here's part two of Robert Banks's prayer about time, from his book The Tyranny of Time. (Read part one here.) This one's weighing on my not because of the oppression I often feel under time's ticking clock but because of my tendency to neglect the realities of finitude as I embrace all sorts of ways of occupying my time. This is a confession of sorts: in my ambitions, in my eagerness to experience life to the full, in my attempts to make people not only happy but dependent on me, I fail myself and my people and my God. Time in this sense is not a tyrant but a parent, teaching me in sometimes difficult ways that I have limits. God, of course, is more parent than tyrant as well, so in these difficult lessons I can take some comfort in knowing I am never alone.

Too often we forget . . . and fail to appreciate your generosity:

we take time for granted and fail to thank you for it,

we view it as a commodity and ruthlessly exploit it,

we cram it too full or waste it,

learn too little from the past or mortgage it off in advance,

we refuse to give priority to those people and things

which should have chief claim upon our time.

Help us to view time more as you view it,

and to use it more as you intend:

to distinguish between what is central and what is peripheral,

between what is merely pressing and what is really important,

between what is our responsibility and what can be left to others,

between what is appropriate now and what will be more relevant later.

A Prayer About Time, Again

Recently I noticed that the clock in my car was forty minutes behind. That happens occasionally, I guess; some short in the clock fuse or something. So I corrected it with a mild grumble and drove myself home from the office. I got home and noticed that my atomic clock--you know, the clock that is regularly updated by satellites, the clock by which all other clocks are judged--was an hour and a half ahead. So I corrected it with a much more pronounced grumble and went on with my life. But it reminded me how significant time as a concept has been to me in my life--it's the subject of countless posts both here and at my other blog, Strangely Dim--and I was reminded of what follows: my first ever post to Loud Time, a prayer that theologian/sociologist Robert Banks recorded in his book The Tyranny of Time. This first part acknowledges God as Creator of time, which has implications for how we look at our own experience of time. I reproduce it here for your edification.

God our Father

you are the Maker of everything that exists,

the Author of the world of nature

and of all living things,

the Creator of both space

and time.

Without you there would be no past,

present or

future;

no summer or winter,

spring or autumn,

seedtime or harvest;

no morning or evening,

months or years.

Because you give us the gift of time we have the opportunity

to think and to act,

to plan and to pray,

to give and to receive,

to create and to relate,

to work and to rest,

to strive and to play,

to love and to worship.

The apostle Paul sums up this prayer nicely for us: "In him we live and move and have our being." Hope you enjoy it. Parts two and three to come.

Paul Grant (author of Blessed Are the Uncool) sent me this nice little pick-me-up yesterday.

guess what showed up when I typed "discipline of celebration" in a google
search? An InterVarsity (StudentSoul) article called "Loud Times".

I wrote that article years ago in preparation for a writers workshop staffed by Jeff Yourison, editor at Student Soul. I tried to get it published as a booklet, to no avail, but Jeff very kindly ran it, and I've hung on to the concept ever since.

http://www.intervarsity.org/studentsoul/item/loud-time

Check out Student Soul; as the French say, it's tout sweet.

Yes, yes, I know the French mean something different . . .