December 31, 2001
DOWN HOME:
Don't look now, but time's ticking
___Time must be a rocket.
___It hurtles through our lives at super-metronomic speed. Seems like only yesterday we poised on the precipice of a new millennium. (OK, for the last time--2001 was the first year of the third millennium A.D.) Now that millennium already is 1/1000th over. Whew.
___If I were a scientist, mathematician or philosopher, I'd come up with Knox's Law of Temporal Motion: Time appears to move in direct proportion to the amount of it an observer already has consumed.
___The older you get, the quicker a year passes.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___Back when I was a kid, time seemed to pass with all the speed of a slug meandering on a moonlit Texas sidewalk. A semester of school, an afternoon spent pulling weeds and a Sunday morning worship service? They all seemed to last forrr-evvv-errr.
___Moreover, time seemed limitless. I couldn't run out of it. So, I had time to read every word of every Sports Illustrated. I could spend hours memorizing the biographical details of all the Dallas Cowboys, tossing a ball with the neighbor kids, riding my bike, watching reruns of "The Three Stooges" and imagining what being an astronaut must feel like.
___Time was abundant, limitless, free.
___Not anymore.
___I'm 45, and every year feels like it lasts, oh, a week and a half. The only thing that passes slowly is my commute to and from work, which is unenjoyable, unproductive and unavoidable.
___Everything else flies by. A semester of Lindsay and Molly's school? Ten minutes. A week of work? Blink, and you'll miss it. An evening meal around the dinner table? A nanosecond.
___By the time I'm 90, I'll have to wear a suit all the time, because I won't have time to change from one Sunday to the next.
___Maybe time seems to pass more quickly as we age because we learn what it's worth. A couple of weeks ago, I spent a quiet evening remembering the remarkable and faithful life of my friend Robin, who died a decade ago of cancer at age 36. As Robin and his family and friends walked through the year of his death, I learned never to take time for granted--always to treasure time with family, friends, church.
___Of course, we know our time is temporary. And as Christians, we understand it isn't even ultimate. We embrace and anticipate eternity. We can't quite understand what eternity will be, but we figure it's beyond time and held precious and inviolate by God alone.
___Still, I can't shake the notion that time, our time, is a precious gift. This past year consumed a significant portion of time you and I will spend with family, friends and the tasks to which God has called us.
___This year, I hope to be a good steward of my time. I pray I won't waste it. That I'll invest it wisely. And that I'll lavish it generously upon the people I love.
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