Time Is A Cruel Mistress

I admire people who possess the quality of constancy--faithful and dependable, enduring and unchanging. Like the monks who get up every morning at 4am to pray the Divine Office, or the man who eats oatmeal and reads the paper every day.

My nature is a bit more fickle. I'm wrestling with this the past few months as I struggle to maintain a regular exercise routine. While relatively consistent in practice, my prayer life is not as consistent in form or time. Maybe that is just the reality of having a family with little kids at home. You have to pray when and where you can. Still, though, I think there's something to be said for consistent, structured, time alone with God. 

Growing up my dad had a picture hanging above the dresser his bedroom. It was a Colorado mountain scene with a stream, trees, and the words "Nothing is Ours, But Time." But time can be a cruel mistress. We live in a time of constant change, decay, and refreshment. People buy houses and gut or rehab them to bring them up to style. Family businesses may last for ten, twenty, fifty years even, but even then they can be subject to changes in the economy or buying patterns, or changing family dynamics or structures. People marry, but not as many make it to death with the same partner.

I came across an article in the Post Gazette today about some of our state universities facing crippling enrollment declines. There are a number of factors for this--college readiness, affordability, decline in high school graduation rates, over-saturation in the higher ed market, etc. Working in enrollment management, it is a constant game of projection, trying to anticipate trends in order to budget and sustain growth. But in the end, you can only go up so high and far.

Where I used to live in Roxborough, on the border of Manayunk, there were five Catholics churches nearby within a one mile radius. These churches were founded as ethnic parishes in the turn of the 19th century as a home away from home for recent immigrants to America. When we lived in Wilmington, same thing--St. Hedwig's was the Polish church, St. Anthony's the Italian church, etc. All are in decline. Many will probably close in the near future, and a piece of history in its respective area will be lost. Is this a tragedy, or just the way things go? Do we 'fight to save our parishes' or accept the inevitable that many are not at the point of being self-sustaining? Where does renewal come from, and who will lead it?

One thing that has amazed me, though...the fact that Christianity has survived and is thriving, here some 2,000 years after its founding. While churches may close in one area, in others they start anew. The message of Jesus is timeless and still relevant. If it was trendy, and not sustained by the life of the Holy Spirit, I doubt it would have made it this far.