chronos

"Freshman" by VervePipe [or the Verve] (one hit wonder--thanks for reintroducing me Dal)

When I was young I knew everything
She a punk who rarely ever took advice
Now I'm guilt stricken, sobbing with my head on the floor
Stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place
For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen
My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her
His girl took a week's worth of valium and slept
Now he's guilt stricken sobbing with his head on the floor
Thinks about her now and how he never really wept he says

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place
For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen
We've tried to wash our hands of all of this
We never talk of our lacking relationships
And how we're guilt stricken sobbing with our heads on the floor
We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip, we'd say
I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

For the life of me....
We were only freshmen

Anyone ever heard this song?--extremely powerful. It sounds really cool with bodhran accompaniment (the celtic drum I got for my b-day). But then, I think everything sounds good with bodhran accompaniment. Anyway, I was just thinking....(p.s.: finally all done my exam-ers)....

We live our lives out of specific worldviews--philosophical paradigms that inform our actions, beliefs and decisions--yet, I think our weltangschauung include a lot more than just humanism, Marxist feminism, Buddhism, or Christianity. They include how we view space and time and Providence (or Fate). Take, for example, myself. In my natural state, I live in polychronic time. It is the same time-system that most third world, non-completely-industrialized cultures live and move in. For them time is cyclical: days, seasons, months years move forwards and back again continuously. The universe is one of an infinite many universes; each with an infinite many births, deaths and rebirth cycles. In the lifespan of a universe we will all be born, die and be reborn infinite times (and when the universe is reborn it will happen just the way it always has forever and eternity-- id est you live all your many lives the same way you always have: repeating the same mistakes until you reach enlightenment and complete oneness with the Divine, only to begin again in the fateful moment of implosion). In such a view, Fate is irreversible, unchanging, cold and indifferent. And so you go "with the flow": Deadlines, appointment times, examination times, class times are simply guidelines which can be followed if one so "chooses" (and so happens to have chosen a billion zillion times before)--or not. Sound familiar to anyone?

There is another time paradigm which exists in our world. It is a monochronic one. People who live out of this chrono-weltangschauung are paranoid about keeping appointments and deadlines. They book their lives around their planners and the clock. Time, for them, is linear--a one-shot deal--and so they have to cram as much as possible into each nanosecond. People in industrialized, westernized countries usually learn quickly how to operate at a maximum efficiency; for if they don't produce and consume, they will be consumed. For many people under this time-mentality, there is no "Fate". You make your own history. Each decision effects a thousand other simultaneous decisions, revisions and reactions that could have gone a completely different way, if you so chose. (All I can say is that you monochron-ers must lead very STRESSFUL lives.)

I have lived my whole life with polychronism imbedded in the fabric of every cell in my being. It's funny because I was born and raised in the West--in a Christian home (Judeo-Christianity is usually associated with monochronism--definite one-time beginning and end, and all that). Interesting that I subsist in a perpetual internal battle between Eastern spirituality and mysticism and the Truth of Christ.

I remember being about eight or nine years old, walking down our hallway stairs. I paused on every other one, wondering if God already knew if I was going to make the next step, wondering if I had a choice in the matter--or if everything I did was already set in stone. I tried to psych Him out: I was just about to land my foot on the next step when I abruptly turned around and ran back up the stairs. Then I thought, if He's God, then He probably already knew I was going to do that. So where the heck is the freewill? I didn't know the term for "freewill" at the time, but I was content in thinking that I had none. That all of your life was pre-planned, pre-meditated and all you had to do was get on the escalator, made me feel extremely safe and happy.

I have since learned that this is not the case. The universe has, since I was eight years old, been blown WIDE OPEN for me. It makes me want to SH*% my pants. I know that God has an ultimate plan. I know that He is ultimately in control. He also Has a divine, perfect Will. But I think that there is a multitude of paths which lead to his purposes. Some, perhaps, are his PERFECT will--I think we fallen humans rarely pick these paths. Others are less than perfect (substitution of brass in place of gold in the temple, if you will), but they still serve to fulfill His heart. Still others are completely off the mark; and yet, He has the power to bring about His purposes in other ways--perhaps ways which do not include the people He would have originally liked to use. The Day of Judgment will, for us all, be a day of extreme pain and also extreme joy. My heart goes out to the people who deny God's calling completely in their lives (usually these go so far as to reject God entirely) on that great and terrible Day.

God may know if we are going to choose the next step, or retrace our steps, or tumble down the stairs, but that doesn't mean that He chose that very action for us. We would be automatons then: metallic and lifeless. Jenni Lynn Nanninga sees in this grace a God who is even more majestic, powerful and awe-inspiring than the God I had previously envisioned: a God that has the power (and authoritative right) to dictate all the lives and individual actions and life-outcomes of His creatures, but instead chooses to give them a chance at it, to give them a chance to willingly choose Him and seek His will.

"Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them any other way. And you have misjudged your friend. She is weak, but she loves you. She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not mean."
"I don't think I'd ever be able to forget what I heard her say."
"No, you won't."
"Oh, dear," said Lucy. "Have I spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn't been for this—and been really great friends—all our lives perhaps—and now we never shall."
"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?"
~ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis