It’s heart-warming to remember that I grew up in the land of tea-times and time lords, Big Ben, hot-cross-buns and Queen Elizabeth II. In that kinder, culturally richer world I knew a lovely English gentleman who, always anxious to be punctual, would spur people on by politely saying, “Time and tide, time and tide”. This is an abstract of the pithy proverb, “Time and tide wait for no man”, which apparently pre-dates not only Shakespeare but the modern English language.
AGAINST THE CLOCK
Time has always been on the march, and no doubt humans in a hurry have observed and summarized the very same problem since the dawn of… it. The days, the weeks and the years pass, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them, so we’re constantly planning and preparing in order to fulfill our duties and to make the most of our lives. After all, procrastination is the thief of time, and therefore it’s necessary to get on with things while we can. In the more cynical moments of my life I’ve leaned emotionally more towards Oscar Wilde’s version of the principle. Here it is:
“…punctuality is the thief of time”.
While you’re scurrying around attempting to be punctual, and showing up early, you could be doing other things or just enjoying yourself.
TEA, ANYONE?
1 CUP OF TEA = 67, 100 MILES
Einstein identified time as a physical property, and one which is an integral and inseparable part of our physical universe. If you think about it, that makes perfect sense. For example, you can’t make yourself a cup of tea without the clock moving on by several minutes. In the time it takes you to make one good cup of tea and really enjoy it, along with a good scone or six, the earth will have travelled sixty-seven thousand, one hundred miles on its journey around the sun. If you keep your eye on a good clock you’ll see that you can’t even scratch your nose without some amount of time passing: try it!
Time isn’t the same throughout the universe said Einstein: one of the ways in which he contradicted the great Sir Isaac Newton. Newton insisted that time is a universal constant, but Einstein proved at least mathematically that time varies according to speed and gravity. You won’t notice that phenomenon, of course, because it applies to enormous stretches of space and extreme velocities which are inaccessible to us.
However, when you’re in a desperate hurry to get to work to avoid annoying your boss yet again, it will seem that time passes very quickly. Once you’re there, and you’re already looking forward to getting home to watch that fascinating documentary about hedgehogs, the clock will be moving agonizingly slowly. Similarly, when you’re having a great time on your Carribean cruise, or a weekend of leisure and pleasure in the mountains, the days will pass as though they were only minutes, and you’ll quickly find yourself back at the keyboard waiting for next year’s vacation. Attending a boring meeting, you could swear that time has stopped: you are at the event horizon and nothing is moving- not even the clock.
REALITY CHECK
Isn’t that weird! I have to confess to suspecting that our universe-our reality- is not as rigid as we normally think it to be. Sometimes, or perhaps all the time, aspects of reality are “warped” around us and in our lives and our minds, just as time is warped out there in space by black holes and other massive bodies. It isn’t just time that’s affected. When things don’t seem to make sense in our lives, we tend to dismiss the oddities of the situation and move on, but maybe there’s good reason to wonder how things happened, or didn’t happen, as they did… or didn’t. Perhaps when mankind was frustrated by the Curse (Genesis chapter 3) far more was set in motion than just weeds being caused to grow abundantly in our alleged “flower patch”.
If you want to see time fly, throw a clock across the room. If you’re an art lover but you’re always in a hurry, you may enjoy No Time Toulouse Latrec. If you like old Australian songs, you’ll sing “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport”, and if you’re looking for Eddy, Eddies in the Time-Space Continuum.
LITTLE GREEN MEN
One of the many reasons I don’t think we’re being watched by little green men is that the universe, and even our own galaxy, is so vast. Even if those elusive critters were able to cross the galaxy at the speed of light (impossible according to most scientists) it would take them fifty thousand years to get here from half-way, and that’s assuming all the traffic lights are green. What would be the point in even bothering? Don’t they have better things to do? Doesn’t “time and tide” apply to them? Shouldn’t they look awfully wrinkly by now? Maybe that’s why they crash so often, and why they’re so reluctant to be seen and photographed-they’re past their prime and don’t exactly look their best after a fifty-thousand year journey with no Mc Donalds to stop at on the way.
WORM HOLES
Ah, says the sci-fi enthusiast and the dreamy physicist, we have wormholes for that sort of thing: openings in the fabric of space through which we can traverse kazillions of light years in the blink of an eye or the twitch of a tentacle to another time and place. And as George Lucas has so well demonstrated, we now have ships which will enter hyperspace and -“Poof!” – there we are in another galaxy altogether. Well, Mr Clever Pants, what do you do if you’re on your merry way to the next galaxy through that wormhole, and you bump into a giant, man-eating worm? Have you thought of that? What happens when your dilithium crystals burn out and the nearest gas station is another six thousand light years away?
DR. WHO?
According to the BBC and now also (unfortunately) Disney, Dr Who is a time lord. He can travel in his little blue police box to any corner of time and space, and he generally finds that the Tardis (the box) has transported him to the very place where his civilization-saving powers are needed the most. Yes, he’s become something of a “savior”: a modern-day messiah. For some reason he frequently finds himself in London, but if he wanted to he could go anywhere – past or present – even to the very end and edge of time itself. Wow-brilliant!
THE TIME LORD
Let me introduce to you the ultimate time Lord – the creator and sustainer of time and space:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Yes, time space and matter did have a beginning, as proclaimed long ago in Scripture. This time-Lord doesn’t need a little blue police box, and He doesn’t require a hyperdrive unit. He doesn’t just visit every corner of time and space, but being infinite in nature, he exists simultaneously in all of them, and outside of them. Beat that Dr…..who?
Contrary to many of HIs critics, He’s far from being boring, small, narrow, old, cliched and dull. This time Lord, the God of the Bible, is the author of all that is incredible. Stars, the earth, butterflies, clouds, babies, thunderstorms and the human soul were all formed from His unfathomable mind and power. To top it all off, God stoops to love, nurture and cherish those who love Him in humility:
For this is what the high and exalted One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit“ (Isaiah 57:15).
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 