Redeeming Time, Part 1

Does this sound familiar?

 

Goodbye, sir, excuse me, I haven’t time.
I’ll come back, I can’t wait, I haven’t time.
I must end this letter—I haven’t time.
I can’t accept, having no time.
I can’t think, I can’t read, I’m swamped, I haven’t time.
I’d like to pray, but I haven’t time...

You understand, Lord, we simply haven’t the time....
Lord, you must have made a mistake in your calculations.
There is a big mistake somewhere.
the hours are too short,
The days are too short,
Our lives are too short....              
                              Michael Quoist

Hurrying has become such a way of life that we feel harried even when there is nothing truly urgent on our schedule.” We feel compelled to complete even trivial tasks. This past weekend I was feeling anxious and when I took the time to uncover the source of my anguish, I discovered that I was worried about getting my new tulip bulbs in the ground before winter. Really?! Would it be a tragedy if I didn’t get them planted?

The speed of life has even assaulted children’s bedtime reading. The One-Minute Bedtime Story was designed “to help parents deal with time-consuming tots.” The classic fairy tales “were condensed into sixty-second sound bites.” How do children feel about it? Carl Honore‘s three-year-old son wants long stories that are read at a meandering pace. When Honore tries to “steer him towards the shortest books and read them quickly, his son complains: ‘You’re going too fast.’” Honore confesses: “Part of me feels horribly selfish when I accelerate the bedtime ritual, but another part simply cannot resist the itch to hurry on to the next thing on my agenda. Taking a long, languid stroll through the world of Dr. Seuss is not an option.”

What has happened? Why is everyone out of breath? How have we become such time paupers when so many modern inventions have made tasks easier and quicker? Kevin DeYoung reported that in 1967, “experts claimed that by 1985 the average workweek would be just 22 hours. Instead, Americans today lead the industrialized world in annual work hours.” Those inventions did save time--but we simply transferred and added time to other tasks.

Our ancestors, who had to haul their daily water and produce their own food and sew their own clothing, seemed to have time for what is truly important. But we don’t. 

If we stop someone on the street and ask, “Do you have a free hour or two to converse about the best things in life, about wisdom and virtue, about truth and goodness?” we should expect to hear a ready “yes” more than any of our ancestors could. Yet, of course, the situation is exactly the opposite. It is much less likely today than at any time in the past that anyone will have a free hour for the most important things in life.                      Peter Kreeft

God created ample time for each of us to accomplish all that he calls us to do. But how can we do this? Over the next several blogs I will explore the issues related to our pace of life and how we can organize our lives so that we have time for the truly important.