Time warp

Have you noticed that time passes differently based on your particular perception of it?  If we are busy it tends to pass quickly.  If we're bored, it drags.  But what time is cannot really be defined.  We can tell that a duration has passed, but we can't measure it except by tracking some cycle within space.  This is still a function of our perception.  So if the rotation of that atom or star were to change speed, we would only be able to know it by the relation of it to another object also bound in space and time.

Think of it like an airplane.  If there were no windows to see things moving past you, you'd have no idea whether you were actually moving or not because everything in the plane would be moving at the same rate, whether that rate was faster or slower, everything would continue to move in unison and you'd never know how fast it was going.  Same goes for time. For all we know, time may actually not be static and might actually pass at different rates which we can't perceive because we can't step outside of it to find a fixed point of reference.

One thing that certainly seems to slow time is expectation.  I've been looking forward to many things lately.  Not in the sense of enjoyment, but simply, a lot of things to keep track of in the near future.  This made the previous month drag like none other.  I'm glad it's over so some of those things can actually occur and time can go back to the pace I usually perceive.

But this led me to remember something Augustine, the philosopher and theologian said.  He talked a lot about time and said that what we call future is really just expectation of something coming into being.  The past is the memory of that moment which no longer exists.  So that makes the present the point between expecting something and remembering it...which really has no space at all.  If you squeeze your conscious perception of time passing down to the smallest moment you can grasp, you'll experience an infinitesimally small point at which the future is sliding into the past, the expectation becoming memory.  It seems to rocket by and can actually be quite dizzying.  Try it right now and see.  Faster than sand through a funnel, moments of potential are becoming memories and we can't hold on to any one of those points.

This tiny point that occupies no area, no space, no time, is the present.  The eternal now.  And that is all that really exists.  If I focus on it too much, I seem to see everything around me like Neo seeing the matrix code; in constant flux through an infinitely minute Now.

At this point I also usually experience a sublimity.  Something enormous and palpably greater than myself.  It's there.  And if I chase it, try to focus on it, I find that it's focusing right back at me.  And that's where I usually lose it.  My mind starts to unravel and the window closes, thankfully, so I can exist without being dissolved into that present. 

I believe that this is a glimpse of the nature and reality of God.  Not some man in the sky.  If that's what you think then your conception of God is far too small.  I'm talking about the Source of all sources.  The prime.  The thing from which all that is derives its being.  And by many other philosophical proofs, I could demonstrate why it must be personal.  In short, it can't be a nameless force or a reflection of my own infinity because it must needs be something higher than my faculty to perceive it or contemplate it.  So if I can regard it, how much more would the source have to be capable of regarding?  If I can think of it, how much more must it, first and to a greater degree, think of me.  But there are treatises (literally) on this, and I invite you to do your own homework on it.

My point is that where else could such a being (even "being" is too small a word) exist but in the only spaceless, timeless space that does exist?  That ever-present, unchanging Now. In that point, I can access the big bang.  I can understand the origin of the universe.  I can know the meaning of knowing.  I can experience what IS on a deeper level than can be cognitively processed.  It's right there all the time.  Seriously try it, see what you experience.

A Dream

I once had a dream that Jesus came to me and took me into a room where there was a large round table. On this table, something like a holographic dome appeared in which He showed me every detail of history and how it fit together. He showed me how He had orchestrated the whole of all happenings in the universe. And He showed me how current events were all woven into the plan. I watched as the universe and human existence unfolded before me like a fantastically beautiful symphony of complex interrelations, events rippling and folding into each other. I watched as the symphony passed beyond present time and continued into the ultimate end. I saw how the world and all sufferieng and all joy played together and how it would all unfold in vivid detail.

When it ended I was awed and honored at being shown and understood that even though I couldn't see how things played together from within my life, I now knew specifically how it would go and that it would all be well...better than well actually.

Then Jesus touched my mouth and said that He would erase the details from my mind because it was not for men to know.

When I awoke, I had no memory of the dream at all. I dressed and left for work. On the drive I was listening to the radio when...I know the exact spot it happened...something in a song, just a snatch of it, reminded me of the dream and the whole memory I just described flooded back, minus the details I had been shown. I remember the dream vividly, and I remember the clarity and sense everything made, but I can't in the least remember what specifically I was shown.

So, I know that history is not random. I know that the future is orchestrated and that the universe and our entire existence form a wonderfully beautiful work of art. Best of all, I know it will all end well...This is an unbelievable grace to someone like me who has so much trouble seeing the good in so much bad. And I know that I would not be able to fulfill my portion of that symphony if I knew all the details. So that too is a mercy.