Life Is A Combination Of Contrasts

A new employee had been caught coming in late for work three times and the fourth time the manager decided to discipline him. He said, “Look here! Don’t you know what time we start to work around here? He replied, “No, sir. They’re always working when I get here.” Knowing the time and keeping the time are different things for different people. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, we read, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

These words of wisdom teach about the conundrum of what we call 'Time'. Life is full of events with a combination of contrasts. The author, believed to be Solomon, illustrates this truth by comparing the opposites —fourteen pairs of contrasting activities as examples of how life is comprised of contrasting events and seasons. A straightforward reading of the passage reveals that there are good and bad events listed. He is not justifying one over the other, rather states that God's plan for life involves a variety of experiences and activities. Weeping may be part of life, but life is not all weeping; laughter has its place. Construction is good in its time, but sometimes deconstruction is unavoidable. Wars may not be good, but become a reality at times

As we step into a new year, we are leaving behind a year that has been like no other in our life time. From the catastrophic pandemic to the chaos of U.S. presidential election along with various natural disasters tested our foundation as individuals and families. The first impeachment of a U.S president since 1998, the worst pandemic since 1918 and the toughest economic conditions since the great depression of the 1930s have tested our foundations. The stock market sunk so much down in March that trading was halted to avoid a crash. Globally we see social and political unrests grow on scale that hasn't been seen in our life time. Over the past year, we have been grieved to watch the health of beloved family members and friends deteriorate and some of us had to say farewell to a few. But we also have also rejoiced together at the gift of new life and enjoyed watching those little ones adding joy and liveliness to our daily lives.

A question was asked to a group of people, "if you only had one hour to live, who would you like to spend that time with?" One person said, "my pastor." Then he went into say that "he can make an hour feel like a lifetime.” Bad times seem to last longer than good times. Time does not go fast when you are in a situation that you do not want to be in.

Everyone goes through good times and bad times; together they make up the season of life. There is a time and there is a season. Time is a point of time in the span of time, where as season is the space between two points of time. It's not the times of our lives that shape us, but the seasons shape our lives. We cannot live only just for the good times while bad times are real. It takes both to make a life. You may not like the time, but you can enjoy the season. Life is a part of time that we fill with events. The events come in pairs of combination as contrasts. You may not like some events and you will love others. But it is not for you to pick or choose. If we were to pick and choose, we would love to be youthful and energetic and nobody would want to get old and weak.

Mark Twain said, “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” But it does not and will not work like that because we do not have control of time. Time was not created by any man. It was there when we came here. The way time as we describe and understand has not been around that long. Back in 1792 the French tried a ten-day week with ten hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour and 100 seconds in a minute. The Russians tried a five-day week in 1929 and even named the days of the week after colors. In the United States it was a railroad engineer's suggestions that time was finally standardized on November 18, 1883. Before that, every community decided what time it was on their own. All railroads out of New York ran on New York time, and railroads west from Chicago mostly used Chicago time, but between Chicago and Pittsburgh/Buffalo the norm was Columbus time. Standard time was not enacted into US law until the 1918 Standard Time Act established standard time in time zones; and then the law also instituted daylight saving time (DST). In 1884 the Greenwich Meridian was recommended as the Prime Meridian of the World and called GMT. Later it was replaced by the term UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).