“… that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal…” (From the Collect of the Day, Lectionary of the Episcopal Church, Proper 12, Sunday closest to July 27)

We’re in a whirlwind here in the U.S.A. A few short weeks ago, an assassination attempt threatened the life of a presidential nominee, while killing one person and injuring two others. Eight days later, the President stepped aside and endorsed his Vice President. If she wins, she will become the first woman — a Black woman — to hold the office of President of the United States. And she has picked a Vice-Presidential candidate who is a Midwesterner and knows rural America well. 

Suddenly, new energy soars through our political environment. While chaos continues, hope for a bright future shines forth. I am delighted to see a groundswell of leaders show civility and respect in our political discourse. They remind us that welcoming differences of opinion strengthen us.

For all the excitement, I am exhausted from the chaos, vengeance, name-calling, and threats of violence. Perhaps you are too. Our collective nervous systems are in overdrive! I am taking time to slow down and recover from this era of chaos.  

When we slow down, we create an opportunity to tune in. This can be hard to do. Tuning in means we put aside our to-do lists that keeps us focused on the clock. I often catch myself trying to go faster, fearing that time is “running out.” Time, of course, is not running out. 

Many of us are living in this doggedly time-bound state. The Greeks had two words for time. Chronos is chronological, or what we call clock time. This is where we spend most of our daily lives. The other Greek word for time is kairos. Kairos is eternal time, or what we may call timelessness. This is the sense of time when everything seems to slow down. We feel part of a larger reality held in nature, like when watching a sunrise. 

Film directors are skilled at using their medium to suggest slowing down time. Amidst all the upheaval in our recent politics, many of us watched some of America’s premier athletes offer stunning performances at the Paris Olympics. The exhilarating gymnastic routines captivated me. Gymnasts seem to fly at the speed of light, while performing complex sequences of moves.

After the performance, the sportscasters often display a slow-motion replay. The slower film allows us to better appreciate the details of the gymnast’s moves. We see how different parts of the body twist and turn, how one movement leads into the next. The film director helps us tap into a kind of “timelessness”.

Many people in the creative arts regularly enter timelessness. They have learned the power and freedom that comes from translating imagination into physical reality. They release themselves from the tyranny of time and discover the power of love that fuels Life. We have much to learn from these artists, musicians, and others in the creatives! They tap into a world without time, a sense of timelessness. This world is open to us all.

Meditation is another technique that allows us to enter “timelessness.” All forms of meditation suggest that we set aside time away from our usual schedules to be quiet, to tune in, and to practice regularly. As we take this time to be with our inner terrain, our experience of time itself shifts. We shift our focus from daily life activities to the complex terrain of our inner world. Time is no longer measured by what we do, but by what we experience. We discover how our minds work beyond our usual awareness and we experience thoughts, emotions, and sensations that we usually ignore. Our experience of time itself shifts. We tap into timelessness. 

“In the process of entering timelessness, familiar ways of thinking make way for awareness of deeper layers of truth beneath these habitual patterns of thinking. Deeper and deeper layers can be unraveled, and finally there is just silence.” (Images of the Soul by Dean van Kampenhout, published by Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag, Heidelberg Germany, page 57)

Meditation is sometimes called a process of awakening. We awaken to more of who we are, or who we think we are, and who we are not. For example, I may discover sensations like a frozen tension in my stomach that never quite goes away; or a depressed mood that becomes a steady companion; or a mental thought pattern of planning every small detail. As I allow myself to breathe into these experiences, they begin to release, and deeper layers emerge.

In time-bound daily life, our usual perception is that there is a clear boundary between our inner world and the outer world. Inner world refers to the realm of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that seem to exist inside our body/minds. Outer world refers to other people, places, things, and events that we perceive as outside the boundaries of our body/minds. Our sense of time is defined in terms of past, present, and future. 

When we shift our awareness from daily activities inward, the complexity of our inner life becomes clearer. The boundary between inner and outer seems to dissolve. We become more focused, compassionate toward ourselves and others, and more resilient. We are better able to set boundaries as our connection with others deepens. As the journey of awakening continues, we are less defined by language like inner and outer, past, present, and future. These are the effects of timelessness.

Here’s another way to describe timelessness in the process of meditation:

“Attention can also be trained to focus deeper and deeper, and then timelessness becomes not just an absence of linear time, but a distinct present of something else; something which feels good, full, and rich.”  (Images of the Soul by Dean van Kampenhout, Published by Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag, Heidelberg Germany, page 54)

Spiritual traditions around the world use the language of eternity to point toward an experience of timelessness. For Christians, to be a child of God is to know ourselves as held in the timeless eternity of God. According to Christianity, we go beyond our usual time bound frame of past, present, and future. The Christian journey is learning to take on the mind of Christ. This involves discovering the endless ways we come short of this lofty goal while holding the aspiration to reach toward it.

Prayer is the practice of recognizing eternal reality in daily life. To live in this awareness is transformational because the eternal is the reality of love, transcending all time and space. This is timelessness. 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

~ How have you experienced timelessness? How do you describe your experience? 

~ If not, what do you think (or sense) may hinder you from experiencing timelessness? What might help you?

Feel free to post your responses to these questions and/or anything in this post.