On the Consolation of Time
Letters & Lessons: Go For (True) Glory (Ep. 2)
[Greetings, friends, from Montana! I’ve just spent the last couple days driving from Austin, Texas, to get settled in Ronan, Montana, so this essay is a few days late.
Last year, I started the tradition that, on my birthday, I would write a letter to myself from the perspective of Time (as if Time were a character and narrator like Death is in “The Book Thief” by Marcus Zusak). Last year’s letter can be found here.
The rest of what follows is the letter I received from Time last week on my 34th birthday.]
As soon as I heard you calling, I knew that another of what you call years must have passed. By now, you must know that I do not march from moment to moment like you do down below. What you call “Time” is so much more unlike me than like.
Why He insists that I answer your requests to make an appearance, I don’t yet understand, but I suspect it has something to do with your preparation. Not since Atlantis have I been asked to meddle so much. One day you can ask Merlin how that turned out. Veritas Filia Temporis. Time is the father of truth.
But back to your preparation… or maybe it is more accurate to call it a training. I suspect you may have questions about that. Your kind always has questions. Well, it is not something I can tell you; I must show you. If you demand reason, you demand to remain alienated. Do you remember His response when Job insisted on answers? He could not offer only answers with words; He had to show Job. There are things of which reason knows nothing… things that must be seen and felt to be known. Perhaps one day your apprenticeship will be official and I can come to you in flesh rather than through these letters.
Until then, accept this description of your current condition as the best I can do. I’ll do my best to explain it in terms of your planet. When a human baby grows hands, feet, and a head in the mother’s belly, it has no idea that it will be born to walk, talk, and think. Until the day of delivery, the baby knows only the small world of its mothers womb. The only intimations of the outside world it has are the light and noises that reach inside. If one day it finds and recognizes the pure noise or music on the outside which it heard only muffled versions of on the inside, the experience is one of a homecoming… a peace and stillness falls over the babe.
Now imagine that this baby, like you, is born not into the real world, but into another womb. The world womb. Another stage of development… a small world where, once again, it sits confused about what comes after, unable to know anything about the next stage except through the light and sound.
This is the human condition. You know (almost) nothing of what comes after. Some of your artists give you opaque windows, granting with their beautiful works glimpses of the world to which you belong but cannot (yet) enter. I daresay that when you see what’s next, you will not see what you are in now as life at all. But I’ve already said more than any human ought to know and likely as much as I am allowed.
So, let me get to the point. If I remember correctly, last year, I delivered this message:
The more you seek self-glory, the sicker your soul will get and the harder this whole thing becomes. More pressure. More disappointment. More emptiness. More anxiety. More noise. But the more you subordinate your will and desire to the Divine, allowing the Light to pass through you unimpeded, the more peace will follow you wherever your feet may fall. No more pressure to appeal to an earthly audience. No more weight of the world. No more false fear of failing. When your only desire is to execute His, magic happens.
This year, I want to talk to you of glory. The Greeks, as you no doubt know, called it kleos. Imperishable glory. They identified it as the core yearning at the heart of man. It was the aim of Achilles and Odysseus as they sought to be seen as great among men. It was a noble aim and accurate identification… but it was misdirected. Eternal glory is, indeed, what you ought to pursue. But not in the minds of man. I believe it was Paul who pointed out that they did it to get a crown that will not last. Real eternal glory can only come from He who is eternal… it is his, not man’s, to bestow.
You might ask why I follow His orders so closely. It is because there is the Divine accolade which even I am after: “well done, good and faithful servant.” To quote one of your kind assigned to my guild:
In the end that Face which is the delight or terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting same that can never be cured or disguised.
To be an ingredient in God’s smile as an artist delights in His work… to be known by Him when we stand before Him… that is the only thing that can grant us the true glory we’re all after.
The price and weight of such glory is the work. Work done in obedience with what you were given is the work you were put here to do. Stick with the gift He gave you and report for work each day. Remain in the Vine and life will bloom in and through you. This alone will open the door on which you have been knocking your entire life… this alone will matter in the end.
Finis Coronat Opus. Semper Ad Lucem.
The end crowns the work. Always to the light.
Until next,
Time