From the associate rector: God’s Bending Time

​As I write this message, I have not yet started at St. John’s, though I have made the big move to Oakland. However, by the time you read this, I will have started with you and we will be on our new journey serving together.

And so, in writing this message, I am time traveling! I know, I know — stay with me. I’ve been thinking a lot about time in these weeks of transition. I’ve been living in the Pacific time zone and working Eastern time zone hours. I’ve been watching the calendar as my November 1 start date seems both a long way off, and suddenly very close.

Time seems a little more fluid, a little less straightforward. It can feel disorienting and even frustrating as my body often can’t even guess if it’s 8 or 11am without looking at a clock.

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But there has also been something spiritually strengthening about this period of “bending time.” Because God’s time is bending time.

The second letter of Peter tells us, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” In other words, time is not as tamed and contained as it may seem.

But oh, do I want to tame time! I want to schedule my days and my years, and know with certainty what is going to happen and what to expect. Yet that’s not how God works and, in truth, that would be awfully boring.

I can’t know exactly what is going to happen or what to expect in these first days, weeks, and months with you. But I can focus on the joy, excitement, and possibility as we start this journey traveling God’s bending time together.

Kathleen