Time and Place

 December 31, 2021

Yesterday I drove 13 hours to western Ohio and back, taking my motorcycle to a Ural dealer and mechanic. Writing was not high on my to-do list when I finally got home. But tonight I’m thinking about time and place. It’s New Year’s Eve. Celebrations and parties are in full swing all over the country, many of them fueled by plenty of alcohol, often creating issues and revealing fissures that hadn’t before been seen in relationships. Sometimes these matters spill out in the middle of the party, creating quite a mess.

Sometimes however, they are kept under wraps until the festivities are over, quite often with words like, “this is not the time, nor the place.” It’s these words that garner my interest tonight. In Isaiah 57:15, we read, “Thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity and whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a humble heart and a contrite spirit.”

Catch the way Isaiah frames his words: He describes eternity, not as a measure of time, but of place—a place of holiness attainable only by the opposite of all that is high and lofty, ie. Humility and contrition. 

What if eternity is more a matter of location than duration? How might this change our thinking? It’s December 31, 2021; many are glad to put these last 365 days behind them, but even saying that places time in a location—behind us. But how does this help? Time has no physical dimension; it isn’t something that can be placed behind us, nor does the new year stretch out before us. 

What matters is not where we place time, but where we place ourselves. Am I dwelling with the High and Holy One, living in humility and contrition? If not, what lies behind us and what is before us is of little consequence. I said that eternity isn’t as much about duration as location. What this means is that living in the presence of God is more significant than grieving or rejoicing over the events of 2021, or anticipating whatever may come in 2022. After all, to paraphrase St. Paul, “If God be with us, who can be against us?”