One of my favorite movie directors is Michael Mann. Many of Mann’s movies involve criminals and ex-cons. These characters often have an especially active relationship with time. Not enough of it, trying to use it well, afraid of wasting it. As one character, speaking of his time in prison, says, “I'm doing the time. Time isn't doing me."

This quote has been on my mind in relation to our Lunch and Learn on Sunday regarding the church calendar. In a crass form Mann’s character is an expression of the Psalmist’s petition “Teach us to number our days.” 

Among the multitude of gifts God has given us is the gift of time, the minutes, hours, and days that make up our lives. One of his promises to us in Jesus is the redemption of our time, restoring the years the locust have eaten, and granting us abundant life.

The church calendar is one of the best means we have of laying hold of the graced time with have in Jesus. It is a tool through which we are invited to keep time with God, and yearly recount His great acts of salvation. It’s an instrument for doing time well.

With that vision of time I want to invite you to the Lunch and Learn following worship on Sunday. The focus will be on how we can structure our days and weeks in step with the season of Ordinary Time. Ordinary time is the bulk of the year, coming between Pentecost and Advent. Ordinary Time as a season is not marked by the celebrations of the rest of the year, and so the need for rhythms and structures that can guide us through it with Jesus is especially pronounced. I hope you’ll register and join in. It should be time well spent. 

In Christ,

Peter+