The Fulcrum of Time
Atlanta, GA
June 8, 2022
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that is the Stuff Life is made of.”
– Benjamin Franklin
The last couple years made it easy to feel sorry for ourselves. A select few of us have the fortitude to resist the temptation. Most of us don’t. I didn’t.
We waste our time ruminating about what’s already been, or fearing what’s yet to come (but that usually never does). And while we do, another day slips thru the glass, adding more grain to our pile of regret.
Every moment is a gift from God. But we regularly return it as soon as it arrives, allowing it to drift away as if we never had it at all. The present, as John Olson put it, is the fragile fulcrum balancing the fixed past with a fertile future. It’s fleeting and finite, and we’ll never get it back. But it’s all we have.
Life is a Heraclitian stream. We never wade into the same moment twice. But, whether into warm springs or raging whirlpool, we take a dip every day, like it or not. Time either carries us indifferently, like a piece of trash in slow-moving stream…or, it washes over us as we dive in, and try to catch a wave.
There have always been swirls and eddies amid the primary flow. But it seems more and more as if societal undertows pull us down, or that cultural currents carry us away.
It can be tough to stem the tide, or to keep from drowning. But as one who’s spent a couple months treading water and searching for shore, I am more certain than ever that we need to keep swimming. Simply staying afloat is more exhausting than riding the wave or fighting the tide.
Not that it’s easy. We all go thru slumps…periods where every decision seems to be a mistake (even if it isn’t), and leave us petrified of making another. It’s like walking across thin ice that’s covered in egg shells. Something will crack. It just can’t be us.
We mustn’t give up, or get bored. Or worse, become boring.
Boredom, as author Matthew Kelly reminds us, is a manifestation of the sin of pride. It can only occur when we are overly focused on ourselves, to the exclusion of God, and everyone else.
Besides, boredom is unseemly. It arises not from want, but from abundance. Poor people are rarely bored. They haven’t the time, or the luxury.
Apathy is an affliction of the affluent. But, whether we like (or are ready for) it or not, apathy and affluence can go away fast. And, with what’s going on in the world, we’re about to be reminded. We wouldn’t be the first.
On a bluff near Colleville-sur-Mer, on the Normandy coast, white crosses fill the field and extend to the horizon. Beneath them are the bodies of boys, the first of whom were laid there 78 years ago, on muddy ground under thick tarp.
They’d been dead a couple days, and were placed in (or on) temporary graves overlooking Omaha Beach. After the war, the permanent cemetery was established not far from that site.
We noted above that each morning is a unique threshold: a fulcrum balancing the eternal past and an infinite future. It’s a fresh start, and a new beginning. Like every day.
Or is it?
Ten thousand young men buried beneath the bluffs of France once thought so. As did twenty thousand Germans who blocked the beach. A few years earlier they all had other plans, until their “leaders” had different ideas.
These young men had girls to marry, fräulein to meet, and families to form. The last thing they wanted was to kill each other. Had they met in a tavern or crossed paths in a pub, they might’ve been friends.
But now, because of destructive decisions of their self-interested “leaders”, they had no choice but to slaughter perfect strangers. These men had their whole lives ahead of them.
Until they didn’t.
In the fading darkness, the young Teutons took their assigned positions atop the cliff. They peered toward the solemn sound of the ascending surf, and into the mist they set their sights.
Crossing the choppy channel under ominous skies, thousands of American boys were packed cheek by jowl on their Higgins boats. They offered sincere prayers to Almighty God, said silent goodbyes to despondent parents, and kissed faded pictures of pretty girls.
As the coast appeared, the dawn broke. When it did, their dusk descended. Their time was up, and their day was done.
Because they gave it to us.
JD
