Aging Capriciously

Are we getting close to the “end of time” or just the end of this year?  Will the universe and everything in it end on December 31^st, 2014 this year?  Are you ready if it does?  Have you ever really thought about when time will end? Will time end only when the world and the universe end?  Or maybe time will just quit, like a watch that stops running.  Some religions believe that time ends on judgment day.  Do you think that there are any clocks in Heaven?  What about Hell?  Does the Devil track time for us?  What about in Purgatory?  (Click to hear The End of Time by Beyoncé)  Do you think we will get to hear Beyoncé dance and sing for free in Heaven?

“Purgatory (Lat., “purgare”, to make clean, to purify) in accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God’s grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.”  (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12575a.htm ).

The Catholic Church teaches that we need to spend time in Purgatory only for certain offenses.  If you are really bad, Purgatory is not an option.  It is only for those who screw up but not really in a very bad way.  You screw up really bad, you go to Hell.  Thus Purgatory would be a stopping point for just about everyone in the human race who is not going to Hell.  Since the punishment is temporal and not eternal, do you suppose they have clocks in Purgatory?  Who do you suppose winds them up?  Can you imagine spending 500 years in Purgatory and watching the clock until you are released?

Perhaps, time will simply wear out when we get tired of keeping time. People have been thinking about and tracking time since the first human beings walked the earth.  Time seems to be part of the human psyche.  If humans did not have time, they would certainly have created it.  It is hard to imagine any place where we would not mark time.  Heaven qualifies as one place though where there would seem to be no reason to mark time.  Why keep track of time when everything is eternal and unchanging?  Heaven should be a place where there are no goals, no accomplishments, no meetings, no places to get to, no tasks to complete, no projects due, no emails to answer and no shortage of time.  If any of these things existed in heaven, then we would need to track time.

So what do we do in Heaven?  We all seem to want to get there, but what do we do with our “time” when we are there?  I guess we just play all day since play does not require us to track time.  Play is by definition devoid of timeliness.  You do not have to be on time to play.  Little children would not have invented time.  Children do not seem to worry about time anywhere near as much as adults.  Maybe that is why Jesus said you must be like little children to enter into heaven.   Adults would be bored in heaven in less than a day.  As adults we become more and more fixed on the idea of time and the limitations that time places on our lives. Perhaps if we could just play all day, then time would end and we would all have less stress in our lives.

Maybe we should create a “holiday” each year where time stops.  A day when you do not have to keep track of time or when time does not matter.  It is difficult to think of living a single day when we are not keeping track of time.  I guess we will just have to wait until we get to heaven for time to stop.  Do you suppose anyone wears watches in heaven?

Time for Questions: 

What if we played more and worked less?  Could we cut time down some?  Can you “end time” when it is just play time?  When was the last time, you were able to forget about time?  How long did it last?  What does it take for you to forget about time?

Life is just beginning.

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”  — Hal Borland