Precious Time

While summer races past, your church staff has turned its thoughts to the Fall.  Many of you have had wonderful vacations, spent weekends in your gardens, enjoyed the good weather, and visited friends and family.  Well, the church family will be gathering soon to set out on another program year that promises to be special.

The theme for Opening Sunday this year is “Come Fly with Us.”  Sunday, September 12th, will be a big festival with the return of the whole flock ready to fly into the new season.  Our chancel choir will return.  The Bell and Discovery choirs will be present sharing their talents.  Communion will be served.  Groups in the church will have booths to explain what they do and how you can be part of their activities.  The Parish Life Commission will be serving a muffin and fruit breakfast.  The Children and Youth programs will move into high gear.  And everyone will be wearing a nametag.  It will be a grand time of catching up and taking flight.  If you have someone you have been meaning to invite to come to worship with you, this would be a good day to follow through with that invitation.

I had a seminary professor who impressed on his classes that there was only one absolute in life and that was time.  According to Dean Fitch, every minute counts for something or else it is wasted.  If you were a minute late to his class he gave you an “F” for the day—no excuses.  His rigidity was lamented all over campus but his classes began and ended on time and all his students were present on time.  My work habits probably were honed under Dean Fitch.  “If you are five minutes early you are on time.  If you are on time you are late.  And, if you are late you are being disrespectful of others who have made the effort to arrive on time.”  After I married and had a child, I learned another time rule.  Parents get 15 minutes/child before they are late.  And when I became a pastor I learned for parishioners being in the pew before the “amen” of the first hymn meant being on time.  Now in retirement, when I wonder where I ever found the time to work, there is still another sense of time.  It is a sense of both abundance and scarcity.  In the abundance mode, there is always tomorrow.  And in the scarcity mode, there is no guarantee of a next breath so one better do it now for that is all we have.  There is both truth and untruth in these revelations.  But in either case, time is precious and it cannot be recaptured.  Even when it is difficult and family schedules are full of competing needs, we each need to make time for what is truly important and what will be of lasting value.  St. Augustine is credited with saying in effect, “I meditate every day for 30 minutes, but if it is a very full and busy day, I meditate for an hour.”

Each day needs some time to savor the day’s activities and to keep things in perspective.  Each week requires some time to reflect and reconnect to what is valued and meaningful.  So, come fly with us.