The Arrow and Cycle of Time

I just finished the Office of Evening Prayer for Thursday, Holy Cross Day. It was a long service because I felt so caught up in the lessons (or readings) of the daily lectionary that I wanted to include the normal (the "ordinary") daily readings as well as the lessons prescribed for the holy day.

For any of you who are newcomers: the Book of Common Prayer includes a liturgy (beginning on page 933) that takes you through a cycle of readings that covers a great and meaningful portion of the Bible over two years. It also includes a cycle of psalms that repeats every seven weeks. I like to think of a set of interlocking gears for marking time, like you see to the left, with the large wheel being the two-year journey through scripture while a smaller 7-week wheel of psalms rotates within it. But then all these other wheels come into play: for example, the prayer book throws in special readings for holy days (like today, the Feast of the Holy Cross; see page 999). I was actually pretty caught up in the flow of the readings of ordinary time: Job, Acts, John, whom we have been with for about a month now. So as not to miss any of the daily drama, I added the holy day readings to the "ordinary" of Evening Prayer, which made for a long service.

Sticking with the clock analogy, let's look for a second at all those other gears turning their way within the big circle. There's the great yearly cycle, where seasons, each marked by their respective Ember Days, conflow into a liturgical year, its ordinary time punctuated by holy days, lesser feasts, fasts, and the great seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter. Thankfully the austerity of Lent passes into the joy of Easter again just as the world around us moves from harsh winter into the fresh breezes and gentle rains of spring. But also this cycle is also perpetuated for us every week. On Fridays we mark the death and burial of Jesus, while just days later his resurrection is celebrated on Sunday. For that matter, every single evening, marked by Evening prayer, darkens into night, which brightens into day again; and with Morning Prayer the glory of the Lord is once again aknowledged and praised. But of course there are also invisible and unknowable wheels, parallel to these, perpendicular even; cycles longer and shorter, stranger and more beautiful. We are cut on the teeth of those gears as well.

I see my own life adding other cycles to this celestial clock. My childhood passes into adulthood as my feet walk a great and familiar path; around me are children who remind me of my former self, and older people who remind me of who I am to become. I start my day, I start jobs, I start friendships... all these things end in time, as gears on the wheels complete their circuit and start over again.

It's both odd and comforting that I can neither see the clock nor understand its maker. I can't fathom its vast and unknowable calculus. I can see what's coming on some of the wheels, but for others I have no idea what the next tick of the gears will bring. But it's comforting to know that the clock exists in the first place, set in motion, understood by God, simply present, and moving along through time and space. Someone has counted the teeth of the gears; someone has measured the diameter; someone has set the tension on the spring. Someone understands the linear circularity, the straightforward rotation, and the confluence of paths that trace our lives through time and space. How lonely it would be to do it all alone.