I've been back in Japan for two months... school's almost been going for 7 weeks... SWOW is over and done... Middle school cross country ends on Saturday... Thrift Shop is less than two weeks away...
All of these truths point to the larger fact that the first part of the school-year is done. My brain is still in "early-school-year-mode" so this is a somewhat disconcerting realization. I'm sure it'll catch up eventually, but for now time seems to be moving much too fast for me, almost as though the passing of a second in my mind is the passing of a week in real-time. I spent so much of my life wanting time to fly by, impatient for the NEXT big thing, whatever that might've been and now I would do anything to slow the passage of time... to savor and enjoy each moment.
Since high school, each passing year of my life has seemed to speed by faster than the one before. Generally, I could anticipate how much faster each year would feel, but this one has thrown me for a loop: this feels significantly faster than the year before. What this boils down to is the reality that I can't count on time slowing down for me--I need to be proactive in savoring each day, in taking time to appreciate life as I'm living it. I need to live, rather than letting life happen to me. It's comfortable to wake up each morning, and fit myself into a formula, a routine that is familiar and then more or less go into autopilot mode, but where's the joy in that? I need to be present in the present... need to take risks... need to actively live each second as an alleluia to my Creator and Sustainer. If I don't do this, then I'll find myself at the end of the year, and maybe it will have been a successful school-year on paper, but what will I have learned? What will I have really accomplished? Will I have grown or changed as a person having just gone through the motions?
If my worries and concerns seem vague or confusing to you who may read this, don't worry--they are vague and confusing... incredibly tough to articulate. The bottom-line that I'm now coming to is this question for myself: What does it mean to be present in each and every moment, each and every day? How can I strive to do this each and every day?
I'm open to suggestions!
great thing to think about - got me thinking quite a bit too, considering my own year also seems to be zipping by.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing that jumped out at me...
"I need to... actively live each second as an alleluia to my Creator and Sustainer."
What better way than to create and sustain?
Ensure that every day, you do something new and perhaps unexpected (creating music or a new piece of writing, spending time with people you usually don't, making new promises, learning a subject you've never delved into before) as WELL as checking off the things that are continuing (following routines, spending time with people you know very well, keeping promises you've made, going deeper into subjects or skills you already know fairly well). Create and sustain, every day. Everything you do, see if it fits into one of these two categories, so every day you'll realize just how much you were able to accomplish, and no day will feel wasted.
Just a thought; don't know if it'll actually work. Worth a shot, though.
Thanks Jonathan--what a valuable insight. Being created in the image of God not only explains who we are and who made us, it is also a challenge to reflect the character of the one who made us. God intends for us to create and sustain, and indeed we do these things, though often for the wrong purposes. Being intentional in creating and sustaining for God's glory must be a way of actively living and savoring each moment--it would have to be; it's what we were made for! The challenge is to resist the urge to be lazy or to create and sustain for selfish purposes.
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