TIME AND REGRET

It’s the time of year when the north wind invades Florida’s warmth, and daylight doesn’t linger much past 5:00pm. The crisp morning exhilarates and makes it easier for me to wake up. The rising afternoon temperature confuses the body . Before I can process these changes, the sun is setting, the day’s too short and the cool air rushes back in.

It’s the time of year when regret tempts me. The year’s death is bound to bring some wondering over what didn’t get done, what could have gone another way, what would have happened if only I had walked through a differnt door.

In "Burnt Norton," the first of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, we find the realm of ungrasped possibility articulated thus:

If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.

We seem to be stuck in whatever now our own past has created. There’s no way to go back and change what, or who we were. There’s no rewind button. Although, the older I get, the more I believe there is a fast forward!

The Gospel offers a rescue plan. Jesus promises one more sunrise, after the very last sunset; one more spring after the final winter. Jesus refers to the Last Day. The hope in this is that there’s an end to the seemingly endless flow of days. There’s an end to all the effects of bad decisions and the slow decay of time. There's an end to all regrets.

After the death of time itself, we will awaken in the glorious morning of eternity! Those who are new creations still often bear scars from life before Christ. On that day, cause and effect will be disrupted as we become new people, with new bodies worshiping the God who wiped away our tears!