Coracle news
Men’s group: Our relationship with time
Posted Tuesday 15 November 2011
Swiss watch cogs
Our relationship with time.
In our November meeting we reflected on a series of quotes by Thomas Merton taken from A Book of Hours...
Christ has laid hold upon time and sanctified it, giving it a sacramental character, a sign of our union with God.
God cannot be found by weighing the present against the future or in the past, but only by sinking into the heart of the present as it is.
I only have time for eternity
Plenty of time! Plenty of time! No breaking your neck to get things done before the next thing happens.
It is morning, afternoon or evening.
Begin.
Take more time, cover less ground.
Time and I
And using the insights from Enneagram we pondered how we each relate to time, whether we chiefly felt that…
1. we are conquered by time
2. time is an opportunity for personal encounters
3. time is a limited commodity to be used efficiently
4. time is evaluated in terms of emotions: to be sped up if bored or savoured if sparked
5. we watch time go by
6. time is boss, something to be accountable to and for
7. time is elastic, adding one thing to another in search of fun
8. we desire to control time
9. time is constant, routine the default
Questions
We ended with questions of what, for us, is ‘good’ time? What is ‘bad’ time? What is quality time?
Am I more oriented towards the past, the present or the future? In what proportions?