I am a hospice chaplain serving as the Spiritual Care Coordinator of a hospice & home health agency. I consider it a privilege to be able to spend some of the most intimate times of a person's life with them.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Time is not Linear

Twenty four hours in every day, 60 minutes in every hour, 60 seconds in every minute, but are all seconds, minutes, hours equal. I contend it is dependent on your age at the time. Now, I am sure that none of this makes sense right now, but think about it. Ask a child how old he is and he is likely not to respond four or five, but rather five and a quarter or six and a half. Time moves so slow when we are young and growing and developing that we need to divide it into halves and quarters. However as we get older we can’t remember whether we are 51 or 52. Some of us still think we’re 39, and others of us will not even admit our age to others or ourselves.

I would submit that the longer we live, the faster time moves for us and the more precious time becomes. As we hear in lyrics, “once we find what we want there never seems to be enough time to do it.” When I was 23 I ask my grandfather, who was celebrating his 75th birthday, “ Does time seem to go faster the older we get?” to which he responded, “Wait until you’re 75!” His comment hit me like a ton of bricks.

How many times have we heard the expression, “Time stood still” or “I have all the time in the world” or “it was as if time had stopped”?

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