Holy Time!

Middle School.  As a child, I intently read George Orwell and wondered if Big Brother would really be watching me in 1984.  I remember watching 2001 A Space Odyssey with rapt attention.  To me it seemed pretty realistic at the time since space exploration was sprinting toward the newest frontier.  I was breathless with anticipation.

Frankly, each New Year does the same thing to me on a slightly smaller scale.  The news magazines list the necrology* of the past year while the very next article delineates the coming advances of the techno-age.  Invariably, I forget what year it is for weeks after the change of the last digit.  What this year brings is the turn of all four digits, something humanity has not seen in one thousand years.

When 1984 arrived it was a bit anti-climactic.  We still lived in a democracy.  Nothing even close.

In 2001 HAL (that renegade computer in the distant expanses of space) was the still the stuff of fantasy, I realize that progress is not as novel and frenetic as my imagination would paint it.

My confession: I wanted to be a space cowboy.  As a child I dreamed of rocketing off to the reaches of the universe in pursuit of the great secrets of that dark, diamond-studded universe.  I wrote to NASA and obtained their latest information on lunar probes, the lunar mobile, satellites, the space station and fact sheets on astronauts that I proudly hung on the wall above my bed.  The disappointing reality is that we are well into the second millennium and I am tooling around in a car just like my dad’s 1970 Olds.  Bummer.

I guess my childhood hope was that time was going to create quantum leaps in the way I lived.  I too, have listened to many of my colleagues –both Jewish and Christian – as they revealed their secret belief: with time we become more civilized, better people.  Both our dreams have proved to be nothing more than fantasies.

An ancient belief states that there is no experience that does not contain the kernel of a great truth.  Our task?  To uncover that truth.

What these disappointments have proven is that time is not a vehicle; it is a gift. 

Remember the trips where we invested copious amounts of energy in the planning?  Anticipated for months, we finally embark on our journey only to find that the vacation turns out to be a dud.  The lesson?  Maybe the trip itself was supposed to be the best part.  Maybe the passage of time is the greatest gift to be celebrated.  Stopping for a drink, seeing the rolling hills, laughing with one another may be better than arriving.

Time is holy.  It is to celebrated.  Whatever happens along the road is simply to be absorbed and enjoyed.  In fact, time is much more holy than space.  Think of it: holy days mark our religious and secular calendars.  They are simply moments set aside.  Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish theologian of this past century, said that when we appreciate and sanctify time, we build glorious castles out of those moments. Expectations of what will come invariably disappoint.  Reality can never match the creations of the mind.  Instead, our job is to enjoy the holy passages of time.  What happens if we are preoccupied with thinking about what should happen rather than revel in the present?  Time goes and it can never be recovered.  There are no ‘make-ups’ in real life.

Perhaps the greatest blessing of the second millennium now that we are well into it is that it has the potential to make us aware of the holiness of time.  I don’t know what will happen on December 31 and January 1 but I am willing to bet it will be a unique event.  As unique as January 2, 2018.

* Adam West, star of Batman passed away this year.  What would he, or Robin, say?  Probably Holy Time, Batman!

On Choice

“I dwell in possibility.” Emily Dickinson

In our imaginations anything is possible.  Sometimes our night dreams are an extension of those imaginings.  We conjure up images of vacations, vast wealth, great fortune, friends surrounding us with nods of approval and so much more.  That is why we embrace external changes with such gusto.  Buying the new I-watch will bring us closer to what we know we can become. The same can be said for any acquisition, experience or discovery.   The downside to innovations is becoming overwhelmed by their pace.

Let’s face it, life is challenging.  It takes a strong swimmer to keep up with the currents of change.  From watches to cars, innovation comes at a breathless pace.  Some of it we welcome.  Some we do not.

In the classic Marx Brothers movie, “Horse Feathers,” Groucho loudly sings, “Whatever it is, I’m against it!”  Frankly there are some times when we want to declare, “Enough already!  I’d like a little stability. Enough change!”

We live between these polar extremes of stability and change.  We want both.  At the same time.

We therefore attempt to navigate life between change and predictability.  For example is it true, “No one likes surprises?”  Sometimes.  I bet everyone has been guilty of saying both, “I love surprises!” and “I hate to be surprised!”

I heard an interview with Avatar producer, James Cameron. He noted that NASA’s motto is “Failure is not an option.” Cameron takes the opposite view.  He says that failure is an option. What is not an option is lack of imagination. Cameron distills the argument down to its basic idea: We must find our place in the world of change.  While retaining our imagination, our dreams of what can be, we need not jettison our personal life’s choices.

An illustration: A sales manager assembled his team for a pep talk.  On the screen was a big white spot with a single black dot in the middle.

He asked, “What do you see?”  All replied, “A big black dot.”  The manager said, “That is a poor outlook.  Look at all the white space surrounding it.  Those are all possibilities which are far greater than the dot.”

As sales manager he was correct.  The job of the sales force is to make sales, see more potential customers.  But that does not have to be our outlook.  We can choose our own path in life. 

I hope you take time this summer to mull over the life you choose, your soul’s path.  All things are possible but the choice is always in your hands.

Monkey See

I don’t defend God.  Generally speaking, I am not on the payroll.    Still, people have expectations.  What I respond when asked about bad things and evolution is only what makes sense to me.

A friend in college said that some mathematician said that if you put enough monkeys in a room with typewriters, sooner or later they will come up with Shakespeare.  It turns out that it was Thomas Huxley who once stated in a debate that enough monkeys would produce Psalm 23. Huxley, after reading Darwin’s “Origin of the Species”, was so taken with the idea that he was Darwin’s staunchest ally against the anti-evolutionists.  Telling Darwin that he would “sharpen his claws” to flay the nonsensical advocates of religion, Huxley was dubbed “Darwin’s Bulldog.”

Mathematically, Huxley may have been correct.  Yet, somehow I doubt it.

Thomas Huxley made that remark to prove that life was random and that there was no Supreme Being.  I have seen coincidences in my life; life not being one of them.

Not long ago Plymouth University did a study of monkeys.  They placed six macaque monkeys in a room with a computer for four weeks.  What happened?  They pretty much ignored it.  Preferring to play with one another and generally frolic, one animal was noted to have hit the “s” key several times.  During the study the monkeys smashed the computer along with using it as a toilet. 

Frankly speaking, I see room for honest doubt.  In other words, agnosticism.  Yet, atheism seems as much a religion as Catholicism.  Or Hinduism.  Or Conservatism.  When I hear them speak of their absolute belief in nothing it sounds to me like dogma.

Professor Robert Jastrow, formerly head of NASA’s Goddard Space Center is an agnostic.  In his book “God and the Astronomers” Jastrow indicates that many of his colleagues refuse to accept the Big Bang theory of the universe.  Many of the fiercest opponents of the Big Bank oppose it because the theory implies a beginning.  A beginning implies a Prime Mover, something they cannot accept.  For some reason, many scientists –seemingly people who are shaped by empiricism, cannot bring themselves to confront the idea of God.  Who knows? Given enough scientists and a typewriter perhaps one of them would write a Psalm?  Naw.