Take off your Watch


Do take off your watch
and forget, for a moment,
the passage of time.

Life, unfortunately, doesn’t let us do this very often. Our calendars don’t allow us to slow down, they are too full of very important happenings, written down in permanent ink. No, not ink. We don’t have time for paper calendars, we save our appointments in our smart phones, thereby saving trees. Trees we don’t really see anymore. We have places to be. We have deadlines. We’re busy.
But every once in a while, there is a pocket of nothing and everything, a warp in time, and we become aware of a sky full of stars outside, waiting to be gazed upon. It beckons us and for once we go, not to get anywhere, but simply to see. We pedal through the fields, reveling in our late-night biker gang spontaneity. We lay out our picnic blanket in the path, nowhere in particular, and settle down and into each other’s presence to behold the stars and embrace fellowship. Time loses meaning as the conversation slows and deepens. Rest seeps in as the grip of a rushed life loosens.
Some moments, like this one, are so beautiful they hurt, too full and rich to be contained or expressed. Beauty transcends the capacity of our five senses, as though eternity were kissing our souls. Perhaps that is why they hurt… because we know that they ought to last forever, but for now, we must let them pass. Wistfully we tuck them away into the folds of our memory. Infinitely beautiful, painfully transient.
But please, dear friend, don’t let the pain stop you from reaching out to return the kiss of eternity.  Stop to pick those lovely flowers. Sit and soak in the sunshine. Stay a little longer at the breakfast table. Ask for the longer version of the story. Open your eyes. Believe me, you have the time.
These indescribable moments of beauty, of rest, and of fellowship are not lost when they are over. A day will come when the Maker of it all says, with a smile on His face, “Thank you for noticing.” He will make an end of transience, and draw us in. And in celebrating Him, we will remember and celebrate all the beauty that gripped us, for it was Him all along.

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