Advent. What time is it?

As I sit here, laptop screen looking at me, I see it’s 17.56 on 4th December. That means I have two clear days to schedule Thursday’s MTW blog.

So far so good. A deadline has a galvanizing effect and, hopefully, words will bubble up from somewhere – the mystery of writing. 

That’s linear, chronological, mechanical time. The sun rises and sets, seasons come and go, and, even without watches, we can hazard a pretty good guess at which month, even the week, and time, just by looking at buds, flowers, fruit, and the Sun. 

But there’s also an inner clock: ‘now’s the right time’ or ‘it’s not the right time’, a sense of time just as real.

It took me many post-school decades before I tried to write. First, a short story to answer a devastating question from my daughter: ‘Daddy, what’s heaven like?’ That misplaced confidence in Dad drew out two days of hard, but enjoyable graft!

And now, I’m attempting to write a historical suspense set in 1796. The feedback from an adviser set off an alarm bell:

“It’s time, John”.

Unexpectedly, my writing had exposed my inner world: my coping mechanisms, vulnerabilities, fears, hopes, and dreams. Now, all on display, apparently, for those who have eyes to see in my writing. Darn it!

I did not expect this.

Joseph and Mary coped with this dual sense of time. On the one hand, Mary’s pregnancy followed its normal course, nine months. But the divine clock that had earlier interrupted their lives via Gabriel, and now, through Caesar Augustus, it was at play again, forcing an uncomfortable journey for Mary, full term, on a donkey to Bethlehem. Hardly a blue-light dash to an awaiting maternity wing!

God’s timing can baffle us.

But our writing turns out to be God’s timing with us; God reaching out to us as we write. For me, Rev 3 v23 is on cue. Jesus knocking at my door. Will I let Him in? Into my inner world? What does He want to say? I hope I can be as open as the Innkeeper.

It’s likely, if you’re reading this, that you’re in the middle of writing an article, a poem, a book, or a play, fully aware of chronological time. But is your inner clock, your sense of God’s timing, also at work?