Our Time and Place

   

 We used to play hide-and-seek on summer nights when I was a kid. We also made up our own games in the dark because it added a little variety and maybe made it a little more scary. Sometimes we would play at the Friends’ Meeting House up the street from where I lived and sometimes we would play at my house.   
     It seems to me now that those games went on for hours, but that’s probably not the case. Time always seemed longer as a kid. I think that was because we weren’t paying attention to the time or weren’t thinking that time even mattered. And as a kid in those days, there was a sense of timelessness when you were off from school for the summer. There were very few organized activities that parents would sign you up for—you were mostly just left on your own to make your own fun.

     The town I grew up in—Medford, NJ—was a true example of small town America in the classic Americana sense. We had a movie theater with a Saturday afternoon matinee, a store to buy comic books and candy in, a swimming hole and a creek to fish in, a woods to explore and play in, a five and dime store to use your allowance in, and a soda fountain with booths and a counter. On Friday nights, there was a dance at the Community Center, and before it became a legal issue, the firemen had an annual carnival with games like penny tosses and wheels to bet your money on.

     Reminiscing about these things lately during these pandemic days, has made me realize that time is more powerful than just the ticking of a clock and the flipping of the calendar. It moves us on without asking our permission. It changes us physically, mentally, and emotionally in many ways, sometimes subtly. It demands our cooperation in accepting the present for whatever it is—otherwise, be miserable or uncomfortable or melancholy.

     In his essay, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. As difficult as that may be, I suppose that that may apply to some extent to the present scenario we all find ourselves in, as unpleasant and uncertain ans restrictive as it may be. I want to be quick to point out that I don’t believe even for a moment that God has anything to with Covid-19. Here I am talking about the unfolding of human history. i.e.-I’m talking time, not situation.

     There have been a countless number of conditions that the inhabitants of this planet have had to endure that have impacted the joy of being alive. Some of them have been great in size and have been wide-sweeping; some of them have altered life as it was known in whatever era it was taking place; some of them seemed, I’m sure, like the end of all things good and hopeful.

     All I know is that this is my time and yours to be alive and walk our walk in this time and place. I say that it is more than okay to reminisce longingly and fondly of former days. It’s okay to complain once in a while. There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad or alone. Those are all human emotions that are part of who we are. BUT behind the scenes of illness and commotion and heartbreak and restlessness and worry appearing in our personal lives and on our TV screens and pouring out of our radios, there is still life. This is our time in the same way it was the time for parents and grandparents and ancestors for generations long ago.

     It is my personal feeling that as we experience this time and place, we have no way of knowing the future, but we do know ourselves and those we love and those by whom we are loved. Perhaps it would be a good and helpful practice to take pauses from time to time in our day, to stand or sit quietly somewhere for just a moment, take a deep breath, and think about the love we have known throughout our lives and the love we have in our lives today.