Brief Revelation - the 4T Rule
After having survived my ten year college reunion – which was quite marvelous at the end of the day – I was driving back and found that four words kept echoing in my mind with regard to change and transformation of anything involving human quirks and character.
I dubbed it the 4T rule and it is something that takes a lot of personal pressure off of me when I feel like the quality of things around me (or things I am trying to accomplish) do not live up to the image I have of what they should be.
For a number of years I found it easier to try to release the mental image completely – to discard my preconceived notions and continuously start every moment of life over – from scratch. For those interested developing themselves and getting to know who they are internally I think this is a really great exercise, but the downside of this way of dealing with life is that relationships – both internally and externally – do not run this way. When you realize you need others around you to really become yourself, it is no longer possible to simply say that today is a new day. There is a cohesive reality, and whether it is based on nothing more than our collective consciousness or actual objective things we can never quite put words to, it is something that every sober person comes to realize they cannot break free from if they want to survive.
I didn’t start today. I didn’t finish today. Today is something that happens, and that challenge does not make it my enemy. Rather there is something that I always have to remember – something that allows me to keep my own life, ambitions and attitudes from taking control of who I am:
These Things Take Time
Regardless of what other resources and opportunities I have, I am discovering that each moment has enough time to do what it was meant to do – not wanting more time or needing less. Time is a resource that, regardless of human will, is the mark of divine – if there is any sort of marker that we can use to measure our progress and attenuation to the universal creative project we live in, it is our ability to measure and use the time we are given accordingly.
Part of that is allowing things to go long. Part of it is not being sad about fleeting things. In God’s world there is no party that is too short or too long. Many times people pursue religious life with the hope of living forever. This is not the same as celebrating the time that we have – in its shortness and longness.
Ultimately, moments are immeasurable – both good and bad – and yet God is persistently portrayed scripturally as being the creator of time, not only the things that live and breathe inside. Our perceptions and attachments to moments in life lock us away from the present – the only escape is to appreciate them ‘in measure.’
The best example I can think of this is looking philosophically at a musical piece as an analogy. There are parts we may like about a piece – do we compress all the notes before and afterwards? We may hate a part because it is difficult to find our role, or perhaps the notes are too difficult. Do we rush through or skip that part? If someone is trying to perform a piece of music well, they have an understanding of meter, but also of cadence. Someone who knows a piece well enough is able to apply the proper cadence to each portion – recognizing the same beauty and hardship as the person who wrote it in the act of performance.
Ultimately, from a scriptural point of view, our strongest stance in life comes from being able to ‘ride the waves’ so to speak – of getting a feel for life’s rhythm and attentively responding. Perhaps as we do this, we increase our chances and our ability to participate in what is going on around us.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© 2006 Jacob Gorny