A reflection by Mother Gabriella
Time. We never have enough of it. We do everything we can to maximize it, not waste it, or organize it so we are efficient, productive, etc. Our culture has conditioned us that our most precious commodity, apart from money, is time, and that it must be guarded and used well at all costs. I feel a Simon and Garfunkel song coming on...As we encounter time during the Great Fast (which can feel like a "hazy shade of winter"), especially in the monastery, we come face to face with our inability to control time (well, anything really, but let’s keep our focus on time). The prayers and services are longer, and, somehow, no matter what you do it feels as if time is not in an hourglass but a colander, always pouring out and draining into the abyss, never to be seen again. This experience can leave us feeling frustrated, angry, disappointed, dissipated or thwarted to name a few.
During the Great Fast, we have two cycles of time in the Byzantine liturgical tradition – one that revolves around each 24-hour day of the week – which intersects with our usual accounting of time from Vespers (evening prayer) to the next Vespers. As these cycles converge, we experience a "perfect storm" with a disorienting and slightly chaotic effect of trying to juggle these two ways of understanding our time each day. It reminds me of an elementary school experiment that I did where we put two pop bottles together to see what the funnel cloud of a tornado or hurricane looked like – shout out to all my 90s kids out there – and we are caught in the center of the storm!
It is in the wake of this convergence that I had an epiphany about time. I was speaking with someone recently who was sharing a struggle with saying yes to too many good things. The person was so blessed to have many friends and people in their life who wanted to spend time, but as a result, they had been left exhausted and without any margins. As we spoke, I had one of those moments where the Holy Spirit speaks something to someone else through me and I realize that actually I am the one who needs to hear what I am saying. I found myself saying that perhaps this person should view their time, not as their own, but as God’s time. That each day is a gift from God, so what if we viewed "our time" each day as "His time" and asked Him how we should use it? Or what if, instead of being angry when things don’t go as planned, I allow the Father to show me that the situation I find myself in is actually His will, and receive whatever interruptions that come as what He wants me to do, rather than keeping me from what I want or think I need to do?
After this conversation, I have been pondering this reality and asking the Father to help me each day to see it as His day, not mine. To see my time as His time, and to be attentive and available to whatever comes as what He wills for me to do in that moment. It has not been an easy or a perfect shift, but it has significantly changed how I view "my day" and "my time." I have been more apt to let go of my white-knuckled grip on all things, and relax more into what is happening. I pray that each of you, especially during these busy days of the Great Fast full of many prayers and church services on top of your normal hectic daily life, can allow yourself to be interrupted by this "tornado of time" and begin to see each day as His, more and more.
