Recently we listened to a reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes about time. It included the lines: “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for everything under the heavens.”
Time is a gift from God. In a little booklet called Living Faith, with a reflection for every day of each year, Sr. Melanie Svoboda suggested a simple activity as a means of appreciating this gift: “Find a ticking clock. If you do not have a ticker and if you have access to the Internet Mr Google will find you one if you search “ticking clock sound” Listen to the ticking for several minutes. Do nothing else. Just listen. Do no work of any sort. Be aware of the ticking sound and the silence between each tick. Remember, every tick indicates the passing of a moment of time and a moment of your life.
After listening, ask yourself how the experience felt. Was it calming? Irritating? Boring? Interesting? Assuming that every tick represents one second, how many ticks have you lived so far? (One year=31,536,000 seconds) How many ticks do you estimate that you have left to live? How have you chosen to spend your ticks so far: sleeping, working, eating, relaxing, talking, listening, reading, playing, praying? Now ask yourself this question: “Is there something you would like to devote more ticks to in the future?”