time

My son plays soccer. Not my favorite of youth sports, ... but I look at his playing soccer like he's "conditioning" for baseball.

Oh, and ...

[set your intellectual time machines to last Saturday]

Today, ... earlier today ... I'm cutting grass. It's long. And while I do not live on anything that resembles an "estate," my grass takes about 75 minutes to cut, trim, and blow grass-clippings into my neighbor's yard.

It's 4:10, and I see Jen standing at the fence-gate. I turn the mower off so I can hear about why she's standing there. "What does she have to say," I'm thinking, standing there with my mower winding down.

She says/asks, "Honey, do you know we are leaving in 10 minutes?"

I ask the question back: "What time is it?"

She answers, "4:10," to which I respond with another question: "Isn't the game at 6:30?," to which she responds, "no, it's at 4:30."

I have budgeted my time as if the game was at 6:00.

I am wrong.

Thankfully, I'm on the tail-end of of the yard, and I say, "Well, I can't go like this ... I'll have to meet you there, ... I need to get a shower."

I finish the yard with no time to blow clippings into my neighbor's because I have my son's soccer game to attend, ... to which I will now be late.

While in the shower, ... living "lately," ... I'm thinking about how crazy my life is in terms of managing time. I'm wondering about why I have no "time" to do anything I really want to do. And I'm frustrated and anxious and angry because I will be late, which always makes me anxious and angry, ... which also forces me to always (almost always) be on time.

While in the shower, full of anxiety and anger and frustration, I literally compute (in a mathematical sense) how many hours/week/month/year I spend doing stuff, ... like watching television, ... this along with how many hours per day/week/month year I spend doing other, equally useless and ridiculous, time-chewing stuff.

As for TV, specifically, I calculated that I spend about 30 hours in front of it a week, ... an electronic IV dangling from my media-sucking jugular. As this thought crosses my mind, I shove the bar of Dial soap, ... no wait, ... I stick the bottle of Old Spice Body Wash down my throat and punch myself to death, naked in the shower.

The paramedics find me, ... not moving, lifeless, "sudsy" and dead. My son stands there, crying in his shin-guards. The "waterproofed" watch on my wrist is still ticking away, and full of life.

Okay, that's ridiculous, and it didn't really happen that way, ... "but what's shamefully ridiculous, really," ... I think about, while holding the bottle of off-brand body wash, "is all that I could be doing with those 30 hours spent in front of the tube."

After washing, drying, and driving, I find myself standing as just another fan at the baseball conditioning session for my son. He, Ethan, does as well with soccer as I do, which reminds me that soccer players aren't so popular in the US.

Then we get back home, post-game, ... and guess what?

The DIRECTV is not working! Now I'm more frustrated, ... FURIOUS, ... b/c I've managed my time so well all day, ... and now I deserve my reward, my dessert. But, ....it's been taking off the table!

I think to myself, "I've eaten everything, even the green beans! Where is the justice in the world if I can't now, ... after doing EVERYTHING I'm supposed to do, kick-back and watch others talk about all of the injustice in the world?"

... which leads me to these questions:

How do I spend my time?

How many hours-per-week do I really spend doing nothing but getting "dumber?"

Why am I not spending that time doing something else?

What is "time?"

Can I control it?

Does it control me?

Do I have any say-so in the matter?

What am I so busy with?

Is my "business in this time" fueling me , ... or anyone else for that matter?

Do I give Jen enough of my time?

How about Ethan and Riley: Do they have time for me, ... to give them my time?

Am I giving "me" enough time?

Can we borrow time?

Do we "give our time?"

Do people "save it?"

And if so, does it accrue interest?

Can I cash it in, ... when "our time is up?"

How could it ever be "up?"

Then what about "down-time?"

Or, is time just really over?

Am I out of time?

Or, is Time all I have?

Is it simply this: by the time we understand time, we can't do anything with it, ... because it's gone?

And how could it be gone?

Doesn't time exist independently of my life?

Why am I able to travel through time by sleeping?

Why can the "feel" of "passing the time" be "the best of times?"

... or the "worst of times?"

Can I "lend" you time?

Or "take" your time?

"Share" our/your time?

When they say that "time is money," what does that mean?

If I can spend time, then what is the best way to spend it?

If I can share time, what is the best way to do so?

Can I take the time?

When I "take the time" to do anything, from whom or what am I taking it from?

If I'm misusing my time, does God have the power to make my TV not work?

Is that how He comes through?

If not, how does He come through?

Does He come through?

Is He?

Who's He?

Why's He?

What's in it for Him ...

Does he wonder/Is He worried about how I spend my time?

Am I wasting time by asking about time and God's perspective on it?

Is there a beginning?

An end?

Do moments pass through my life in-between those book-ends of "begin" and "end?"

What could I do with 30 hours a week if I made the decision to abandon TV?

What would my life look like if I abandoned just 10 of those 30 hours?

How would I spend them?

Would I replace those 10 to 30 hours with another useless exercise?

Or, would I put those hours to good use?

And what would that look like?

Why would He pick TV to turn-off, ... make it unavailable, as a way to "make time?"

Why not some other "thing" that takes up my time?

Is time really finite, a socially constructed concept that has no bearing on what reality "really" is?

Is He trying to tell me something, ... in that short amount of time?

If so, .... why has it been such a long time coming?

I'd ask more questions, but guess what ....