I think it was Albert Einstein who postulated that time is the fourth dimension – after length, width, and height. That intrigued me when I first heard the idea. I think I was in junior high. About the same time, I watched a TV episode of the “The Twilight Zone” that played with that idea.
This particular episode was set in the American West in the 1800s, the time of cowboys and Indians. A cowboy was alone and stranded on the plains in barren territory – I can’t remember why. He was tired and thirsty, leading his horse over the hillside with hopes of finding some civilization, or at least a trickle of water. As he reached the crest of the hill, what he saw instead was a four-lane interstate highway with cars zooming by at 70 miles per hour. He had crossed the barrier into another time zone. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He was terrified. He stumbled back down the side of the hill he had just climbed. The eerie “Twilight Zone” music started playing and that was the end of the show.
That episode fascinated me. Could it ever really happen that we could slip from one time zone into another?
While still in high school I read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. This novel used the same idea of accidental time travel, but it was a humorous adventure rather than a science fiction mystery. People have continued to write comedies and mysteries, novels and movies, based on this fourth dimension of our universe.
Marian and Floey walking the neighborhood
A couple weeks ago I was walking Floey through our neighborhood and we met a brand new neighbor and her dog, also out for a walk. As we chatted for a few minutes I thought about telling her that this whole neighborhood used to be the farm where I grew up, but I decided against it. The hot summer days when I would sit on top of a tractor pulling the hay baler over the hill where her house now stands were gone. I can still see my dad on the wagon behind me, pulling the bales of hay off the baler and piling them high on the hay wagon, but that scene is invisible to her. Those days were in a different time zone, about 50 years ago.
Obviously, that’s not me on the tractor – but that’s the kind of tractor, baler, and hay wagon we had.
Ever since that encounter, I’ve been thinking about the 1950s – 1960s time zone as I’ve walked Floey along Chickadee Drive, Oriole Lane, and Bluebird Pass. In my mind I can see the hay fields and the corn fields that used to be there. The tobacco field is now Canterbury Court with ten houses lining the street. The pasture where the cows used to graze is now Stone Meadows, the condominium community where I live.
I guess that’s one of the benefits of getting older. In my mind, I can travel through time, at least back through history for as many years as I’ve been alive. That’s one more thing to be grateful for. “Gratitude” is my word for the year for 2015. Earlier this year I mentioned my word several times in this blog, but I haven’t talked much about it lately. The time machine in my mind is something I’m really grateful for – 67 years of mostly wonderful memories. This library of memories in my head is a huge resource for time travel.
I think the closest thing the Bible comes to on the subject of time travel is in Ecclesiastes. (If anyone knows of anything else, please let me know as a comment on this blog.)
God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to enjoy themselves as long as they can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. [Ecclesiastes 3:11-13, New Living Translation]
“Enjoy the fruits of their labor…” – I guess some of the fruits of our labor could be our memories. If you happen to see Floey and me walking through our neighborhood, and I have a great big smile on my face, know that I may have traveled back in time, and that I am sitting on top of our old red “H” tractor, pulling the baler and hay wagon behind me.
Does it ever seem like your world is shattered? That life is suddenly broken? For some of my family members, that’s what August has been like this year.
Sandy has been in declining health for the last few years, even though she’s only 67. Several months ago Kevin took the picture of his mother and her husband, Conrad, holding hands when she was in the hospital. Kevin had gone to visit her, and he found them both asleep but still comforting each other.
On the “Mim and me track,” our farmhouse is moving quickly into its next phase. As you may recall, six years ago we turned the farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast style spiritual retreat center. We named it Whispering Winds Retreat Haven. A year and a half ago we put Whispering Winds on hiatus and agreed to rent the farmhouse to a family who needed a place to live for a couple years. On August 3rd the renters moved out, five months earlier than planned. We were okay with that because the renters were able to buy a home of their own sooner than they expected, and we really wanted to spruce up the place and try to sell it.
