In the current issue of PARABOLA*, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee writes: “Time speaks in many voices, many different images and sounds…Time itself has become a standard, isolated, no longer able to communicate, to share its ancient knowledge…In today’s world the hectic, stress-inducing demands of time are often answered by the spiritual teaching that only the moment of now exists…But within each moment are all the rhythms of time, the patterns that flow from this still center…Each moment is both outside of time and also contains time, for, as .S.T. Eliot writes, “history is a pattern of timeless moment.””

“It’s time.” “What time is it?” “Time to get up. Time to go to bed. Time to go to work. Time to play. Time to pray. Time to eat. Time to get dressed. A time for everything under heaven. A time to be born, to die.”

One of the things I missed most in my years of active alcohol and drug abuse was Time. I never had time for those people, places, and things I now consider important. I thought I ‘managed’ my time well as I got my work done, kept appointments, made sure I looked good, etc. The problem was I was not there at the time. I was in a Blackout for just about all of my drinking/using years.

When I think about time, I think of my adolescent/young adult years when I would take my bicycle and ride around the countryside. I had all the time in the world. I loved the smell of new mown hay. I loved the aroma of the bog and the turf. I had time to stop with a neighbor—whether or not I knew them—and talk about the day, the weather, etc.

Then came the combine harvester and “real work” began. Gone were the days of turning over rows of hay for it to dry. The owner of this machine came early in the morning, turned over the hay, bailed it and spit it out for us to pick up and take to the shed and then go to the next farm to do the same. There was less and less ‘time’ to play, to visit, to sit around and play poker.

Then came college and a frightening new world of Bud Stupid, James Jemison, Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, and friends. And time vanished. They took up a lot of my time even when I was not actively drinking. They gave me courage, strength, a belief in myself that had not existed before. I drowned myself in their presence and time was not important except for them. I always had time for a drink.

After I came to grips with my powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life due to the influence of mood-altering chemicals, including alcohol, I had to make time to reflect more seriously on my life as an active alcoholic. During those years I buried my emotions, I had a split screen on God—one I believed in, the angry one; and the Loving God about whom I talked to others.

Sobriety was a time-consuming process of relearning to say, “I feel…” and learn words other than “fine” or “Great” and to avoid “You made me…” I skipped through steps four and five and then had to make time to take a fearless and moral inventory of myself. The more time I took to reflect, the more honest I became.

By the time I reached the eight, nineth and tenth steps I was beginning to appreciate the program and its “demand” for rigorous honesty.” It was time to grow up. It was time to take my life seriously.

The next step was to seek “through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understood him.” I was good at saying prayers, prayers I had learned by heart as a child. But “Prayer is the lifting of the heart and mind to God.” And, to do so, is to become more consciously aware of God in my life. God’s time is Now, the here and now of everyday living. I didn’t have to stop and say prayers. I could look around me and see the presence of God in the sun, moon and stars, in the rain and storm, in the peace and quiet of a beautiful day. The world became for me “God’s art gallery.” As I walked or drove through God’s art gallery I witnessed the changing of the day, the changing of the weather, the changing of the seasons. God was present all around me. I was living and being alive in God’s time.

I don’t know when or where it happened but, in living the program, I found a new meaning of time and having time especially for those in need.

Séamus P Doyle
Séamus is a retired Episcopal priest in the greater New Orleans area.

* (Summer 2023 Vol 48.NO 2. 25-29. “Sacred Time: The Seasons and the Cosmos.”)