The Time Between Times (Reprise)

(I originally posted this piece for New Year’s 2011, but it so well expresses my thoughts and feelings at this time of year–and I’ve gained a few new readers these past 12 months–that I thought it worth posting again.  I hope you enjoy it; I welcome your comments.  Happy 2012!!)

The ancient Celtic peoples, from what we know of them, made little distinction between the natural and the spiritual worlds.  Faeries, banshees, and gods were considered just as real, and just as likely to be present, as trees and animals and human beings.  As part of this worldview, they were especially interested in the “times between times”: dusk, dawn, the beginning of spring and end of winter—any period of transition in the world.  These times between times were said to be especially meaningful, when the world between natural and spiritual was especially thin, and anything might happen.

This concept fascinates me.  I’ve always loved liminal places (places where the line between natural and spiritual seems thin and especially permeable): cathedrals, ancient ruins, etc.  But I have not given as much thought to liminal times.

Today, of course, marks the day (in the Gregorian calendar, anyway) we consider to be the first day of the New Year.  I have long considered New Year’s Eve and Day to be my favorite holiday, and I think this is so because I enjoy the sense of transition, that being present for the passage of time, observing the passing of the old and coming of the new.  I suppose that waiting for midnight on New Year’s Eve is a lot like being in the time between times, liminal time, watching the world change.

But the problem with New Year’s, like many things in our contemporary culture, is that is too scientific.  At 11:59:59 it is 2011, and then at 12:00:00 it is suddenly 2012.  There is not really much time between times; there is only one time, and then, all at once, another.  We have not given ourselves much breathing room to observe the transition.

And we do this with so many things.  One moment, one is a student, and then one hears one’s name read and receives a diploma, and then one is not a student any longer.  One walks into a church single, take vows, and then one is married.  The work day begins promptly at 8 and ends at 5, with an exactly 60 minute lunch.  We have everything so carefully measured, so exactly timed, that we do not even notice the changes.

But life, real life, where it matters, is not like that.  Organic things do not follow clocks.  There is no exact time when a child becomes an adult (laws about turning 18 and 21 notwithstanding).  Rather, there is a time between times, when one is both and neither.  We do not instantly go from day to night, but watch the sunset and the falling shadows of dusk.  Spring is already on the way before winter is fully over.  And because we can’t measure these things exactly, they are easy to miss.  We are in one time, and then we realize that we are in another time, and we don’t even remember making the transition.

And really, all of life is a time between times.  We are always transitioning from one thing to another, whether we realize it or not.  Usually, mired in our circumstances, we do not realize it.  But whatever is is already passing away, and whatever is coming is already coming.  If we stopped to be in the moment, to be mindful of where and when we are right now, we would realize that the moment is passing.  Whatever we are enjoying now will not last forever, and whatever we are suffering will not last forever either.  Change, impermanence, is the true nature of things.  We are always in the time between times.

And if one is a follower of Christ (and I am not assuming, dear reader, that you are, and I certainly welcome your views whatever your spiritual or religious persuasion), the idea of living in the time between times is especially meaningful.  Some of us in the Christian world get very wrapped up in “end times,” while others of us point to the spirituality of now.  But both of these viewpoints have their truth, of course.  We are in the present, the now, and it is a time between times.  We are living between the time of Christ’s first and second comings.  He has been here and is still here in Spirit and his influence is still being felt and he is coming and is on his way.  We are between times.  We can take comfort and rejoice in the now, because it is passing away.  What is coming is already on its way.

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