Although the devices with which we measure time are evermore precise, our ability to keep time well might be on the wane. My phone tells me it is 7:50 a.m., and therefore, we are on the verge of being tardy for elementary school drop-off. My phone also relentlessly delivers e-mail, text messages and other small slices of data at all times of day and night - ceaselessly, wherever I am - so my only free times are the times when the battery runs out.

Time orders our lives. It is the fourth dimension of our existence in this life, and - in this sense - is a blessing. Keeping time, free time, losing track of time - these are all good times. But when we experience time in disordered fashion, when we become the servants of time, time becomes more bane than blessing.

Many - if not most - religious traditions include practices to frame time differently. With the psalmist, we can rightly say, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15). We know - that left to our own devices, and in this modern era even driven by our devices - time can get out of control.

So people of faith keep time. Christians - together with the other Abrahamic faiths - keep time by the week, hallowing a day of rest and worshipping. They also mark time by the day, setting aside space for morning, evening or daily prayer.

The church has also - in time and over time - adopted practices to frame the year. In some ways, this is the most robustimaginative reframing of culture the Christian church observes. Although not all Christian faith communities observe this annual cycle (Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost), enough do to make it socially significant. The church year - different from the Roman calendar - invites the Christian community to frame time diff erently than the world, to order it to the life of Christ rather than the moon or political events.

We begin the year with Advent - a season surprisingly unfamiliar to many. Advent is a four-week season marking time toward Christmas Day. In one sense, it has a feel comparable to the secular holiday our entire culture observes, beginning with Black Friday. It even overlaps it to a degree. Advent is different, however, in that it is designed as a penitential season - a season of waiting and hoping, attending especially to texts in Scripture that anticipate Christ’s second coming and Christ’s birth. Historically, it was a season of fasting - as strict as the fasts of Lent (the six-week season leading up to Easter Day).

Sometimes Advent has even been called a “little Lent.”

The first Sunday of Advent, I happened to bedown in the sacristy of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville getting ready to preside at Eucharist at the Northwest Arkansas Community Correction Center. Those of us preparing for worship in the prison shared space with the worship leaders preparing for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which Episcopalians sing to usher in the Advent season.

Many Christians use some type of Advent devotional during the Advent season - reading a small portion of the Scriptures, praying in hope and waiting in peace. There are secularized version of thiscalendar as well - some quite clever. Our own family has a Lego Advent calendar we open each morning after we read from Scripture. The kids love it.

In our own congregation, we especially mark the time by lighting Advent candles at Sunday worship, adding one additional candle each Sunday. Each Wednesday during Advent, we take time to share a light supper, then sing a setting of Evening Prayer. This year, it has been a special privilege to host an ecumenical array of speakers about prayer practices. The Rev. Lowell Grisham of St. Paul’s Episcopal joined us the first Wednesday of Advent toteach us the practice of centering prayer - a way of keeping prayer focused and capacious. This past Wednesday, Dennis Peterson, co-director of the Fayetteville Prayer Room, shared his ministry, which seeks to provide a space where communities of prayer can truly pray without ceasing. Next Wednesday, one of our own members will talk about our prayer-chain ministry.

Keeping time in this Advent way can be difficult in a culture that wants to jump immediately ahead to fulfillment - in place of anticipation. It requires an act of imagination and considerable intentionality. But it can also give us great joy and turnour hearts outward in love. I notice, for example, when I am attending to how I keep time, when I am engaged in daily prayer and observing the Advent season, my heart is strangely warmed toward the many, many people working this Advent season. Emergency workers, night employees at nursing homes, call-center operators - all these keep time so diff erently from me, and I am reminded of this prayer I pray for them each night at Compline:

“O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live. Watch over those - both night and day - who work while others sleep,and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Too many of those who work in the service industry - or take on second jobs during the busy holiday season either to make enough money to buy presents for others, or to sell the many gifts all of us buy this season - keep time to a certain degree by enduring it. As I meet them, as I shop, as I get my coffee at the local coffee roaster, I am mindful of them, and pray that one way I keep time in the Advent season is by simply being kind. Our ability to be kind, the chance that we will love,is often directly correlated with our perception of how much time we believe we have. When all of our time is in God’s hands, and we believe we have enough time, this makes all the difference in the world. It makes all the diff erence in time.

THE REV. CLINT SCHNEKLOTH IS PASTOR OF GOOD SHEPHERD LUTHERAN CHURCH IN FAYETTEVILLE. HE LEADS A LITERARY FICTION BOOK DISCUSSION AT 5:30 P.M. THE FOURTH TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH AT NIGHTBIRD BOOKS IN FAYETTEVILLE. HE BLOGS AT LUTHERANCONFESSIONS.

BLOGSPOT.COM. CONTACT HIM AT [email protected].

Religion, Pages 10 on 12/14/2013