DECEMBER 24, 2021 – On this Christmas Eve I write with greater urgency than ever before. If great theoretical physicists and mathematicians play with the science of time and great philosophers and theologians wrestle with a metaphysical construct of time, each of us must face the hard-edged reality of time. A cosmic force beyond our poor powers to hold, divert or interrupt, time exerts absolute control over us. There’s no escape from its grasp.
I’ve understood time’s grip intellectually and intuitively ever since knowing the direction of things—“up,” “down,” and versions of “sideways.” But yesterday, troubling physical symptoms associated with a cold, long panels of blood tests, and sobering doctor visits transformed all that is philosophical, spiritual/religious, and mathematically theoretical into the blow of a two-by-four between the eyes. The definitive diagnosis must wait another 10 days, when a follow-up appointment with a specialist is scheduled.
One day at a time, one step at a time, as my spouse and sons wisely counsel.
Meanwhile, like time itself, I need to “get a grip.”
The first step is to imagine place and space . . . and time . . . 1,000 years hence. By a margin of 900 years, no one I know—and no one who knows anyone I know—is likely to be alive then. Yet on time’s open-ended scale, 1,000 years is a blip. This first step brings perspective.
The second step is to look back in place and space . . . and time . . . 1,000 years ago. By another large margin, I’ve known no one who was alive in such a blip-in-time long past. My ancestors led their lives, felt their pain, experienced their delights, then became dust re-mixed with the dust from which they’d appeared—for a flicker in time. More perspective.
The third and immediate step is to embrace today, Christmas Eve; the present, a series of moments comprised by a single rotation of our planet. How best to summon purpose in this day—or in any day? With presence. This is the counterpoint to time’s grip: presence—being present, being in the present.
All of which reminds me of the presents that have accumulated under our little Christmas tree standing cheerily upon an old trunk below a window of our front reading room. My wife is very much in the present with all her presents. She’s worked a Christmas miracle with these gifts of love and delight piled high in North Pole magic.
On my side of the ledger, I had little to show until yesterday morning. In a moment of inspiration, I thought of the perfect present for my wife. The finished product—boxed and wrapped—was lighter than air. After I’d placed it among the overflow presents surrounding the old trunk, I felt . . . lighter than air, suffused with the understanding that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
In the light of this season, may you too find the lightness of . . . Christmas presence.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
