Beloved Community,
This Saturday night, most Americans will set their clocks ahead one hour. On Sunday morning, we’ll wake up to our least favorite part of Daylight Saving Time—waking up and discovering we were robbed of an entire hour of sleep, then we’ll spend the remainder of the week trying to convince ourselves that 7 o’clock is the new 6 o’clock.
Daylight Saving Time both fascinates and infuriates me. Because of DST, I have been thinking a lot about this thing called “Time”.
It is a human-created illusion to help us maintain our lives in a linear fashion. It doesn’t really exist.
Our founder Ernest Holmes wrote that “Time is a sequence of events in a Unitary Whole. Time is not a thing of itself. It is simply a measure of experience in Eternity. Times does not contradict Eternity but allows It to become expressed in terms of definite experience. Time is necessary since it allows experience to take place within the One, but time is never a thing of itself. It is impossible to measure time; for yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not come. Today is rapidly slipping past. If we were to attempt to put a finger on any period of time, it would be gone before we could point to it. “
In Religious Science, we know that the past and future do not exist because it is always ‘Now’. Yet, we continue to try to manipulate it even though The Universe knows nothing about time…only the Present.
This moment is it. It is everything. It is all there is. Author Myrko Thum explains: “The present moment is the only thing where there is no time. It is the point between past and future. It is always there and it is the only point we can access in time. Everything that happens, happens in the present moment. Everything that ever happened and will ever happen can only happen in the present moment. It is impossible for anything to exist outside of it.”
Being in the present moment, or the “here and now,” means that we are aware and mindful of what is happening at this very moment. We are not distracted by ruminations on the past or worries about the future, but centered in the here and now.
So this Saturday night as you manipulate the digital numbers on your alarms, microwaves and watches, remember, no matter how much you may be able to manipulate the hands on a clock, you can’t change something that doesn’t really exist. Setting your clock doesn’t change time….it only changes your perception of a changeless reality.
I look forward to seeing you this Sunday….don’t be late!
Peace and Blessings,
Rev. Jackie Holland
Community Spiritual Leader/Senior Minister
