For a second, and a second more. The last days of life are so time conscious, if one is aware. The inexorable draw to another place becomes intertwined with the ticking of something known since conception- a timetable that corresponds to a divine alignment. The passing of one moment into the next is recognized, feared and embraced, not by choice but because of the grid on which we were placed. Time, time and a half, and time again. Mysteries that have defied humanity attempts to understand -unfold in ways that confound mathematics and science. The existence of space within time is a non linear grid. The suggestion of spaces within those spaces that fold and rearrange and open to other depths is not easily proven by the science understood in our age. Time factors into this along with gravity, and becomes an essence we temporarily term as reality. 

Time then. 

What do I know of it?

How does that knowledge define my understanding of the eternal.

Throughout my life, on an irregular basis, an older lady will approach me and speak the following- your times are his.

It always rings true, it is always when I need it, it is mostly when I doubt I am at the right moment or on the right track in life.

My times are his. To me, what that means is that if one were to take all the moments of me and number them, that their order, arrangement and sum would belong ultimately to the Lord. 

In my childhood there were many experiments.

One that comes to mind along this topic is the practice involving manipulating time. I, as a child, was held in a place with other little girls. It was sort of like a horizon of some sort. We could see thickish off-white lines that looked milky, and moved, like clouds and rivers, and there was the sense that there were worlds beneath what we could see. It was a darkened light environment. Our companions were spiritual beings who dwelled in a place other than earth. Indeed, if pressed, I would say this place existed outside of the earthly dimension I know as my daily reality. 

The lines were bloodlines of families.

These particular bloodlines were families that ad made covenants or pacts with spiritual beings for gain, power or protection. The pacts gave these beings the rights to perform these experiments. 

The place where we observed from was outside of time.

Sometimes individually and sometimes in groups, the other girls and I were inserted into a bloodline. Our instructions were issued in growls and mutterings- hate and destroy, kill if you can, divide, alarm, cause them to fear you, be unpredictable, we will deal with the rest. And in we would go.

In an odd way it was somewhat cathartic to be involved in such acts of negativity. I could find place for all the feeling that otherwise ad no fee room in my existence. Movement was key in this endeavor. To move violently and create lots of noise was proportionate to effectiveness. Sometimes we were invisible, sometimes we were visible. Sometimes we were there for a day, more often it was longer although when we were plucked out for return it seemed as though no time at all had passed. 

Those times when I observed the process, those times when it was not my assignment but I waited with the beings while others went, it was interesting what happened. 

The size and type of disturbance seemed to shift the very bloodline of the family. If it was a big event, such as a death, the line grew much wider and timing shifts occurred- like the difference between watching a river that had free flow and one that had various blocks and dams that flows in abrupt and jerky motion.

If it was division over a period of time, the observance of the line showed a lengthening, almost like anything attempted in that line would be twice as hard and take twice as long.

The beings would insert us, observe results, then remove us and debrief us on what happened. They learned as we became defiled. There seemed to be a certain limits on our use. I am not sure if that was imposed because of our humanity, our age, or our providers.

I learned to be unpredictable. I learned the value of surprise. I learned I did not have to stay within the confines of expectations. Indeed, the further I strayed from those the more power I had to influence. As I learned how important time was to those who had power over me, I became similarly aware that eternity is a fact that exists on God‟s side. 

Eternity is the answer to time‟s deficiency.

When the imperfections of an existence within time is fully understood, eternity is the alternate plan that turns out to be perfect in all the ways the original was not.

It turns out to be the plan that superseded because of a better model while at the same time it exists as an alternative when the old model has run its course and simultaneously it is the perfection that needed imperfection as its backdrop so it could be recognized. 

Time was created and for a time, it served.

It was a way to put a beginning and an end in the middle of a longer theme. It was for communication with each other, a frame of reference that when shared could increase the ideas we want to convey. It placed importance on order. It lent stability and continuity in the midst of pulses that are erratic and unpredictable.

And when the new has come, it has replaced the need for the old. The old is passing away even now. And all things are made beautiful, in their time. My time, your time, my dog‟s time, all are different yet converging. Convergence is the step towards the emergence of a new thing. Time facilitates us learning to recognize the ways of God.

There is a more, there is a hereafter, and it is a superior model. At the same time, it currently exists. When the creator formed us in his image, there was a portion of himself imprinted onto each of us. And while the imprints are different, yet they are all the same, in that they draw us towards ideas larger than ourselves. This imprint allows us to consider with recognition that hereafter, in fact, exists now, and always has. Eternity has been placed in our hearts. We each have a sense of knowing things extend beyond our lives. Sometimes we get a sense that influence or impact is larger than the conceived, recognized moment. This awareness has made the study of history legitimate. It comforts humanity to study the known. It offers stability to encourage the unknown. But eternity is not something that can be studied according to the grid of knowledge we possess. And so it is dismissed. If it is not understandable to the human mind, surely it cannot matter? Oh, the arrogance of our hearts!

Eternity is what takes the fail of human life and coverts it into success. Eternity allows the perspective of justice as a real factor in our equation. It is what balances the unequal and keeps the positive in its proper order as ahead of the negative. It is the part of the existence continuum where values of events and imperfections change. Eternity makes the room for evil to defer to good. It lays the foundation for faith hope and love to remain. Eternity is the provision for my gaze to transcend me beyond where I am to a better place. It is both a place and a way. It is a subject and a description.

Eternity brings perspective into alignment.

The knowledge of it inspires the human soul and spirit. The taste of it creates divine hunger for more. The smell of it encourages choice that matches alignment within it. The sound of it resonates to a time before time that we all intuitively know and language fails in catching. The sight of it grips the heart and imprints it in a way that is never forgotten. 

Eternity was before, it is all around us, it sometimes collides with time and topples understanding, and it exists beyond. It surrounds God and is something that was issued because of his identity. Through him all things were created, and without him there is not anything that does exist. A heart cannot beat without a framework around it. Eternity completes the cycle of continuity that removes God‟s need for a beginning and an end. He is both and still more. 

You have probably touched eternity at some point in your life and felt the difference between your ordinary understanding of existence and the surprising other-worldliness that comes when the two, time and eternity, collide. 

The first heart connection with your child. A certain intimate moment with your spouse that transcends both emotion and physical fulfillment and imprints you into each other for mutual sustenance and growth. The passing of a loved one. Baptism, sometimes. A car wreck, where everything seems to slowly unfold before you. A moment when you are uncertain your life existence will go into the next moment of finite time. It is almost as if time is suspended while eternity intervenes and intertwines into the event. 

Eternity is a truth that creates a concept for all who exist with spirit. It makes provision for a „beyond‟ existence. 

You have something eternal written into your DNA. 

You will experience eternity.

The choice is yours on what that eternity looks like. 

Evolving. De-evolving.

An ever expanding increase of positive beyond what you can think ask or imagine.

Or a merciful unraveling of what constitutes you in a context of bad beyond what you can think ask or imagine. 

These are the two I have seen.