Volume 8, Issue 6, page 9
113 ~q
ii CWS
Part 9. CHAP. VII-HOW MovES THE HOUR ?
W YOU BEGAN to think about time You c
t?u,d do that and work too, b~cause ime was always with you. It
was like your heartbeat
except for one thing, in its nearness to you; it had been before
you and would continue
without you. You could not imagine what it was like or could be
like without time. It was
different with different people, no matter what watches and
clocks indicated. For children
desirous of being grown-ups it traveled on leaden feet or barely
flapped its wings. For old
people it sped . You were young yesterday, today you were old.
You *alked Up a brief flight
of stairs from the cradle and you were old.
You went to sleep and there was no time you wakened and hours bad
escaped you wbil~ you rested. You had
insomnia and felt that the hours of darkness would never pass.
You felt that perhaps you didn't understand time very
well. And it was a good idea to understand it
since you were being paid for your time. Wha; did you mean by "my
time". anyway? Time was a heartbeat of
eternity past and eternity future. It was the present. the past;
it was . . .
Well, you thought, what was it? It was very important when it
slipped away from you and you knew yourself
growing old, and thus coming closer and closer to the grave. You
were born with the grave before your eyes, even if
you knew-which You never did-that you would live to be a hundred.
Being born, being alive, was part of dying.
They fitted together like past. present, future. Some scientists
claimed that time was the fourth dimension. but you
didn't know about that-in fact, rather doubted it.
TIME WAS different when you were whiling it
away, when you were living it up, when you
were working, fishing, hunting, entertaining,
or being entertained.
Time wasn't worth much when you were doing nothing with it
according to your free will . What became of
your free will, by the way, when the grave was the inevitable end
and the desire to live couldn't free you of the one
inevitability?
Time was valuable when you were selling it to somebody-selling
that which you called"my time". "My time,"
you insisted, "is valuable." To whom? If you did nothing with it,
of what value was it? It was worth, you had
always insisted, whatever you could get forit. To whom? Yourself
or your employer) or both? it seemed reasonable
that it should be worth at least as much to your employer as he
paid you for it, but you knew many workers who
weren't giving measure for measure. In fact, you yourself hadn't
always dome so.
Moreover, you had no sooner got buried in your work, or tried to
bury yourself in it, than time began to drag.
You began to fidget.
OCTOBER, 1961 T h e
SCIS
You began to do little things that, you felt:, would make it pass
faster. You smoked. You talked with someone
close enough. You went to the water cooler. You went to the
washroom when it wasn't necessary, and spent more
time than uould have been necessary. It was common practice.
Everybody did it. That, of course, didn't make it
right.
So, what did you do to make the time pass more quickly, knowing
all the time that time didn't pass at all, but
that you lived from moment to moment in some fashion or other?
One fashion made the time drag. another fashion
made it travel swiftly. Another fashion slowed or speeded it up
at will.
People did tricks with counting, like counti,ng sheep. How long
did it take to count to a thousand, one at a time,
slowly? you knew, for you had tried that. You also knew how long
it took to count to a thousand by slow fives, or
slower tens. It was like counting sheep to make yourself sleepy.
You tried other tricks. You tried to see, conscious
of time all the time. how long you could keep from looking at the
clock. That wasn It the best way, for enough
time had never passed to make it worthwhile. You couldn't use up
the time faster that way. The hands mcved almost
as fast when you were actually watching them, when they didn't
seem to be moving at all, exceDt the second hand.
NOW THAT You were trying The Experiment I wouldn't it be a good
idea to use your extraneous thoughts on Jesus?
He was, in your heart and mind, right with you. How better could
you make use of your time?
"Don't use me as an excuse to kill time," you could just hear Him
saying. "Devote time and thought to me, of
course. You can't think without considering me, or my Father and
your Father, but remember this: During the time
you are hired by Caesar, he has hired you, not just your fingers,
or your feet, or your nose, or any Part of you.
No,, he said something like this: I All right, you're hired I I
Or he said, 'The position is yours!l or he said, 'When can
you start?' No where, no time. did he say: 'I'm hiring your
hands. or your feet; bring th em here every
weekday morning at eight sharp II No I he hired you, all of you,
He made provision for you on his
payroll. He made provision for your coffee break, for parking
your car. for hanging up your
coat and hat, for drinking water, for ashes from your cigarets,
cigars, or pipes -if you
insist on taking the time to smoke while you work. in return he
has hired you. Now, just what
are you giving him as 'You'? Forty hours of your time each week,
or fifty? or whatever.
That's all very well. By dint of much drive down the years, your
class of workman has gotten
your work done in 40 hours per week. and there is no objection to
that; you have done well
for yourself. But do you trade, for the hourly or weekly wage you
take home
everything the employer hasa right to expect?I1 This is almost a
speech. You consider it.
You've always considered yourself a reliable employe, but now
that He, or Somebody, has
called your attention to the time you spend
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