Dim Time

I think I remember that their names were Paulo and Francesca. They were characters whom Dante met in Hell, in the Inferno portion of his Comedia. They, lovers, had stolen what they ought not from one another, and were doomed to whirl endlessly about in a funnel of air, because they had abused love.

Dante asks them how it happened, and one replies, "We were alone with the hours and with dim time." Someone left them alone together; someone who should have known better. It is very dangerous to leave young people alone together, with the hours, and with dim time. They do not notice how time passes, because it is so dim, and their hearts slip from their bodies, and are exchanged, and then what? Unless a marriage, nothing. Nothing but an ache, and a memory, and the passage of time. Time is no longer dim, but rather sharp and distinct, minute by minute. Slower, slowly still slower slowed: prick by painful prick.

But God is merciful. One day you are walking outside with your memories, and a playful little aura, a breeze, brushes up your nose and down your throat and through the place where your heart was, leaving a little life, a little breath of something, a fragrance perhaps. You feel it in spite of yourself; you want to be faithful to your pain, but you are not numb any more. And though you think it cruel that life goes on, it does go. Time begins to speed again--why should it not? You are still young, though older now. Yes, older. Your eyes show it, because now there is a shadow there that was not before. A new law has been written on your soul. "Tarry not with only one other, in the places where time grows dim."

You ask, "Why, God? I did not know. Why did you not tell me it was dangerous?" But that is not fair. You knew yourself that it was not wise to trifle with the hours, to spend so many of them so thoughtlessly. You knew that you would have to pay with your heart sooner or later. You knew it was your heart's craving that led you to do it. Blame whomever you will, but the fault is your own--had you been satisfied with God, you would not have done it. No one warned you? Your conscience warned. You did not listen.

But God is gracious. He will give you another heart, a better, one less likely to wander from Himself. It was a hard lesson, but you have learnt it now, and you are deeper, fuller, for it. You might have come to this richness more easily if you had obeyed from the first; however, the way that it happens is always the best way, because it is God's choice. That is God's way, to make of even coarse black cotton thread a cloth that glows rich colors, and is as fine as cambric lace.

You are the black cotton thread, your life's thread, and well you know how to tangle the skein! But once God has put you tangled into the fire, He draws you forth smooth again, wound up into a compact and shining ball, ready for weaving. Ah, and the weaving! He stretches you out along a warp and woof, stretching thinner than you believe you can bear. But then the shining threads begin to be crossed with yours, soothing and healing as they bind, gold on black. And somehow, the colors melt together. Sometimes the result is a vibrant green, sometimes blue as blue as October twilight, somethings pearly, sometimes wine red.

You will not see what sort of cloth you are become, not immediately. And it is not yours, you know. Your velvet and brocade is worthless unless it covers someone else's shaking shoulder, protects an old hand from the cold, or passes under a baby chin. You will be cut up over and over, cut in half, in pieces, to satisfy the need of so many others. But that is what you are for. You were not made to please yourself, you know. You were not made to squander time. The more you realize eternity, the more you will keep a sharp lookout on the spending of hours. It is strange that the recognition of eternity's vastness should engender such a thriftiness, but not so strange when one sees who is at the center of time, and who has given you your allotment of hours, which are really all His, after all.

Keep your eye on the sundial, which plays across its surface a reflection of the sun. The light passes--chase it! Do not be caught behind in shadows, where you may forget, and time may grow dim. Chase the sun home! Once you have found its home, you need never fear again to have misspent the hours, for there is no end of hours there, and evening shadows never come.