When Time Devours Space

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with history – not so much as an abstracted list of dates, events, and personalities, as if existing as an unrelated diorama, curated as a curiosity of time. But rather, as a glimpse of how the world takes shape from one generation to another – how cultural perception inextricably grows out of the past contextualized by the particularities of place. In short, history is the ever unfolding story of time and space as we’ve experienced it – therefore, inevitably, our creating of history is made in how we transition from one generation to another . . . as our experience of time and space continues to shift.

But the phenomenology of technology invariably creates the illusion that technology is somehow saving us time – as if time could be captured in a jar and placed on a shelf for later. But truth be told, technology is merely a compression of time – inescapably attenuating our experience of space. Consider travel. I can travel by car in one day, what would have taken a week by horse drawn carriage . . . and I can travel that same distance in a few hours by plane. In each case, my experience of that distance (space) would be profoundly different . . . from a fully embodied memorable event — to an inconvenient trip, as a means to an end.

When we make this trade-out between time and space – our resulting experience of that time becomes less embodied . . . we invariably become less present within each moment, as we experience life sped up. This is what happens when time devours space. Consider the amount of time we spend on the internet – a virtual space that requires nothing more than the portal of our backlit screens to access. We can disappear for hours into this virtual space, losing almost all sense of our experience of the literal space we actually occupy. This time spent feels necessary and significant . . . all the while, we become ever more disembodied in our own experience of the real world.

Perhaps you see this as a simple matter of wasted time – imagining that seeking a more efficient and meaningful use of our time hasn’t already been the driving catalyst behind all of the technological wonders we now own. No, this is far more than a simple matter of time management. It’s about how we return balance to how we experience time and space – where we exchange our fast food approach to information and relationships for a more meditative and engaged life. Could it be that the crisis of identity and meaning that currently besets our culture is merely the obvious symptom of living in the myopia of our own sped up disembodied lives completely disconnected from any sense of history?

Jesus chooses to step into history – the God who speaks the whole universe into existence, the God unconstrained by the limitation of time and space, chooses to enter into the world we experience . . . so that we might be able to truly know him. And in knowing him – we might be able to truly know ourselves. And here’s the thing — it takes no time at all to find gratitude for the time that you’ve been given, within the place where you live . . . especially when you realize it’s all a gift. So take a minute to meditate on this truth, and allow that moment to linger in silence — until you remember what it is that truly gives your life meaning . . . and then fully embrace the person God created you to be at this moment in history.

. . . even though time’s always leaving.