Time Refuses to Be Managed.

Today I sat down to go through an accumulation of notes I’ve taken over the past couple of years, mostly from sermons at my church and lectures at Bible Study Fellowship. I was particularly looking for ideas that I’d scribbled down in the margins about possible blog posts, while also reminding myself of the wonderful spiritual truths that have been showered down upon me from various speakers. I don’t know that I intended to spend quite as much time as I did, but now I have a manageable little pile of notepaper with various areas highlighted. So I decided to go with the idea that ended up on top, quoted above. Here’s the entire quotation:

“Time refuses to be managed. We need to manage ourselves, but even that is very frustrating.” (from a 1/21/18 sermon on the book of Ecclesiastes by Josh Waltz, my senior pastor)

As I write these words I’ve just gone online and started up the Tomato Timer, which is now counting down its first 25-minute segment of the day. The TT is but one of a host of online timers and apps that follow the Pomodoro Technique, which is touted as a time management tool but is, of course, nothing of the sort, and is, indeed, a way for me to manage myself. I’ll start writing a post and then think, ‘Does Jennifer Rubin (not to be confused with Gretchen Rubin) have a new article up? Is there something in my inbox?’ and so on. If I keep giving in to those impulses it can take me forever to write a post. The Pomodoro Technique has you work steadily for 25 minutes and then take a five-minute break. After you’ve done four Pomodoros you can take a 15-minute break. The tool functions merely as an outside nudge, something that I desperately need in order to stay on task, Obliger that I am. And it isn’t as if I dislike writing this post: I love doing it! Love it, love it, love it. Knowing that at least a few people will read these words and be encouraged is such a high. As I’ve probably said several times before, I fell in love with blogging the first time I hit “publish” on a story I’d written, which happened to be about my son’s cancer. (Newcomers to this blog may want to read it; my son is now doing fine and is off at grad school, for which we are so very, very thankful.)

Although I didn’t plan it this way but just took the first idea presented, it is somewhat fitting that I’m writing about the nature of time in the week that the great physicist Stephen Hawking has died. How many people actually made it through A Brief History of Time, his best-selling book? I know I started it and got bogged down, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was reading the words of someone absolutely brilliant. (I just went online—for research purposes!–and saw that Wikipedia has a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book. Perhaps that material can be my lunchtime reading today.) The idea of time is a really weird concept, if you think about it. (And I do think about it, often.) What is actually happening as the minutes count down on my little timer app? Why is the world going to be different tomorrow when the sun comes up than it was today? How can I make plans for the future, when the future doesn’t actually exist yet? Or does it? Are you ever struck (maybe I’m the only one who gets such strange ideas) when you’re at an event you’ve planned, perhaps something as big as a wedding, by the thought, ‘Hey, this is unfolding about how I thought it would! I foresaw the future!’ Something along those lines. We can imagine and plan, and then the future actually arrives. (Of course, we’re saved from weirding out too much by the fact that something always goes wrong, or at least not according to plan.) I’ve mentioned before that I always try to be present in the moment at the actual performances of the Cherry Creek Chorale. (Next concert is coming up in May! Be sure to come!) We’ve slaved over the music, we’ve come in for a special Saturday-morning rehearsal, we’ve stood for hours on the risers at dress rehearsals, we’ve laughed a lot at our directors, both of whom are quite masterful at the art of keeping us interested and engaged as we sweat and slog. And then, finally, the two nights of the actual performance arrive. And it’s so easy to let those times slip by, to pay attention to how my feet hurt (since I insist on wearing heels for performances) or to worry about whether or not there’s enough food for the reception, or to be singing one piece while thinking about another one. And then it’s over. No go-backs!

Well, the timer buzzed and I took a break, it’s now counting down on the second Pomodoro, and I want to get this up on the website, links and all, before it buzzes again. That’s probably an overly-optimistic goal, but I’ll see what I can do. Literally. In about 19 minutes that future will arrive.

How about you? Can you manage yourself better, pay attention more to the relentless passage of time? Hey, it’s later than you think!

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