Time

Sunday morning has come round again, on schedule. I slept until seven-ten, had my magic mug of hot & black outside on 7H porch, wearing sunglasses against the silver-gray glare - - revealing a dark raincloud churning by overhead. Then inside for Linda's soft-scrambled eggs, and now at ten-to-eight it's too late to make the eight o'clock church service, so it'll be the ten-thirty service again today.

Life Itself on my mind as I sipped my coffee. Specifically, perhaps the most full-of-life person I've ever known, Beverly McDaniel, loved and celebrated Head of Holy Nativity Episcopal School for many years, including my years working with her on the HNES school board, and on the Foundation board, and my years as school chaplain and religion teacher. Beverly died last month, and last week her ashes were interred in the cemetery at her beloved hometown, Brewton, Alabama. A friend was there for the final service, and on her way back home to Panama City texted me a picture that stunned me into a cluster of awarenesses: 

Of finality: after all is said and done, this is it, how and who and where even the most ebullient life settles and begins the fade into the anonymity of human ages. A marker. In our Time, unlike our grandfathers' day, no tall marble gravestone etched to proclaim from eternity who and what we made of our life. For anyone who strolls by, a grave marker with a name. 

It was, for me, a stunning summary of every human life's effervescence: remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So, Time: Time is all we have. And then whatever God makes of Eternity.

But for Earth, and Life and its Time,

RSF&PTL

T90