Have you ever had a moment where you aren’t sure what year it is? Just a flash, even, where you get confused and think – wait – is it really 2023?!
Our human relationship with time is always complicated, but even more so as we attempt to emerge from what one of my friends calls the “blurs-day” feeling of the pandemic. Time is extra complicated when we’re working to claim a new sort of normal. A normal inevitably informed by a greater awareness of how quickly everything can change, how little control we have, and how we need to take advantage of whatever time we have and make it count.
It hit me this week – this is the first January in two years that we aren’t starting our year with services and ministries only online.
No wonder we feel both a sense of urgency and an overwhelming sense of exhaustion! Like we need to get on with our lives and carpe diem but also there is a desire to let it all go and simply rest. There is a sense that it’s time to finally get organized and on track, and also, there is a real struggle to get started or a fear that maybe it’s actually too late. Too late for things both specific and tangible – and also things ethereal and existential.
This January, we are digging into our relationship with time. The longing we have to manage our time and the often challenging realization that while time is infinite, human life is not.
Inspired by the book by Oliver Burkeman with the same subtitle, our series, Time Management for Mortals, invites us to trade out an understanding of “managing” time as a matter of efficiency for a practice of embracing our limits. This series is an invitation into continuous refinement of clarifying and experiencing what really matters. In this practice resides the possibility of experiencing deep time, that humbling connection to our place in a much larger arc and the incredible mystery at the heart of this universe.
We’ll kick it off this Sunday with our service celebrating our 125-year anniversary as a church. Together, we’ll look at the hopefulness of history, especially when experienced in community.
Join us at 8:30 AM (in person only) or 10:30 (in person or online).
With joy,
Rev. Gretchen