Time Keeps Flowing Like A River

Saturday Stories

October 27, 2018

I

In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of The Ring, my favorite passage is in the chapter "The Shadows of The Past," where Gandalf tells Frodo: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." I'm sure Frodo is not the first who felt the pressure of so many people depending on him and the sense that time is running out. I know how it feels to have so much to do and it seems there is not enough time to do them all. That sucks. It's strange because I've been so busy at work lately while my personal life is a continuous series of marvelous events. So many good things are happening and I think my life outside the office has left behind the one inside. Which is funny because those are the very things I never share with the public. All in all, I'm just happy and grateful that things have turned out they way they did.

II

I have learned the hard way that when I allow myself to get overwhelmed by a long (and a bit obsessive-compulsive) To-Do List, it manifests exactly those kinds of situations so I get into a loop, like what Doctor Strange did to Dormammu. Yet I'm thankful for those experiences because they helped me find clarity. At this point in my life, I now also believe that everything happens in perfect timing. I've seen this personally, like finding what I'm looking for when I need it, or even in seemingly small details like an elevator opening as I enter our lobby or the pedestrian signal lighting up when I'm about to cross the street. And I'm learning all these now just when I'm most receptive. In a higher sense, I also believe that Time is One – everything is happening at this moment. In other words, the future is now and it's yesterday once more. 

III

There is a scene in another book full of magic (but with a lot less evil) that made see Time in a new light. My beloved Mitch Albom tells of a young man named Dor in his The Time Keeper. In Dor's exile in the countryside, he had become too obsessed in measuring the length of days that he began to take for granted the beauty of a sunrise. I think that speaks to a lot of us. We get caught up with the things around us, and we forget how grateful we are for them in the first place. Sometimes, cliche and cheesy as it may sound, we only learn the value of something when it is about to taken away. One day, Dor's wife, Alli, got sick and was about to die. Time was running out. There was only one thing to do.

IV

His childhood friend Nim, who is now the King, has built the tallest tower in the world. Nim had gone up to the top and shot an arrow at the heavens – and had wounded the gods. Dor ran up the steps in the pyramid-like tower as fast as he could. Only the gods can stop Time, and if he could get to them ... in time. Suddenly, the past, the present and the future have ceased to exist. There is only him in that Moment. Meanwhile, in Dor's so-called future, there is a man named Victor Delamonte who was also desperate for time. When he first came to America, he promised himself that he would rise above the poverty that haunted his childhood, and he did. Victor triumphed over every obstacle except one – cancer. His most irreplaceable treasure is nearly gone. And that's when he met Dor.

Photo courtesy of JayneVsBooks.wordpress.com