Time

American life is somewhat frenetic.  There would be no complaint about time energy if it accomplished personal constructive purpose.  That is to say, that if an advanced pace speed contributed to better persons and relationships, one would find ways to advance the practice of speed.  There is a safe speed to drive, but we must go faster.  There is a good schedule to follow, but we must jam it to the point of cancellation of one for another.  There is a humaneness of time in the consuming of a meal, but we may choose fast food.  The sermon must be short, the music must be fast, and the events of the day seem important by their number related to timing.  All of this piling up of life comes at a cost too great if our objective is to perceive God and his accents for life, and thoughtfulness in the human context.  We can’t wait on each other.  Bosses are decreasing the amount of time that a procedure may be performed.  We jam life into time warps. We need to know that there is a too fast and a too slow for life.  Time relates to managing life moderation.

During my student university experience, well over fifty years ago, there was a study that came by me related to the sneaky way in which Americans were being indoctrinated for various objectives that, if they gave thought to the concepts, they would not accept them.  One related to speed in language and visuals, appealing to the subliminal in persons.  An experiment included advertising.  (A quickie flash on the screen in a theatre related to popcorn influenced persons to go out to the lobby and buy popcorn – even if they didn’t care much for popcorn.)  If a thought was presented rapidly enough it seemed to by-pass the conscious mind and fall into the subliminal.  It was only a flash until the ideas or conducts, so presented took hold of the listener.  Other factors were included in the study.  For example, Hugh Hefner determined to change sexual privacy to public review so he determined to use good writers, slick paper, and a general class approach for the masses.  In this approach he could abolish the Victorian approach in the public life.  He, with others, achieved the goal.  There was sleaziness in the carnality of the past that the new approach would avoid.  Acceptance, to the degree there is acceptance, has diminished old protective patterns.

In recent years the media have advanced the speed of the reporters.  The point is that more material can be presented in less time, but the effect has been to short circuit thinking, to appear more mechanical, to be less understood, and to remove the proper timing of the human being in relating to the important things of life.  Even academicians are admitting that the speed up advanced by the internet has made it difficult for them to read through the number of pages needed for their work.  Where once they followed a regimen that moved their disciplines along, they now discover that speed has reduced their efficiency – and ultimately their enjoyment of what they are doing.  In a recent review of sound/visual television bytes I concentrated carefully on the nearly 100 or so pictures run through in a few seconds.  There were shots in the series that would be forbidden as stills in time on television.  The producers know that, but they also know that this is the way they may succeed in purpose.  The public will have been captured for their goal – for good or ill.

King David had a number of ways in which to learn the right, to develop the better qualities of mankind, even to finding God.  One of these related to what might be called sacred leisure.  On occasions in the Psalms he referred to: wait on the Lord.  Psalm 25 used Wait as a theme.  Other Psalms extol the idea.  One finds nothing frenetic in the conduct of Jesus – in self-control.  He would not, and does not now, permit time to rule him.  He is our person of eternity.  In that context time has no status, is unknown except as a favorite issue in human interchange – forgotten by anyone in heaven who lived in time.  Education will more and more in the century ahead focus on science and statistics.  Charter Schools, at this writing, are growing with more prospective students wanting to get in than the students already accepted and at their studies.  They are told by their gurus to get rich, and the fastest route for them is in education.  The approach is intense, and most students, parents, and teachers seem to like it that way – at this moment.  What works in humanism alone is acceptable.  The only proofs will be in nature’s evidence.