Time Is Very Flexible When It Floats

Living in the tropic I can better understand the Oriental idea of time being a wheel. 

Here time doesn't move linearly, the are no changes with the season. It may rain more one month, it may be a bit colder the next one. Then it will be hot and rainy.

The changes come with the dates, days we commemorate something special, with the changes in the moon and the sun.

People here name their months according to the changes they see in the nature. The is a cloud month (puyu killa), a baby animal month (wiwa killa), a fish month (mihanu killa), a corn month (sara killa), a rain month (tamya killa) and there is even an empty month when nothing grows (mutsuy killa).

The year is a circle and the months are represented in a circular form. Not a line from left to right but a bird's colorful tail.

The moon moves in a circle and in the circle of the moon you can see the changes in the nature. The rain doesn't depend on the season of the year but the season of the moon.

Here time doesn't move, it doesn't tick or run, time floats or stays still while the wheel turns around and it's time for the next festivity. There is no rush to prepare it all, because it will come in it's time and rushing around may just spoil everything.

How can you pick corn if it's not the time for corn? How can you hunt for ants if it isn't the ant month and the ants won't be ready yet?

In a hot temperature, it's wasteful to try to hoard things. If you kill more animals than you can eat and cook at once, it will only spoil and the insects and vermin will have a feast. 

If you plant a seed next to a river you can return when the fruit is ripe and ready to eat. Picking it earlier would only spoil it for human use.

We just passed the Chunta Killa. The month of the fruit of chonta palm. A very important product that is used as food or let fermented and then made beer of.

The current month is known as Ala Killa. The month of the mushrooms. Delicious brownish mushrooms that grow from fallen logs in the jungle and are searched, and eaten, with great enthusiasm in the Kichwa villages.

Christmas is one of the special days that mark the flow of the time and tell us that another year has passed.

How has this affected me life? The impact has been huge. First the chafe, the pain of change from thinking the year and time as going forward. Keeping my eyes in the future, planning for today.

The change from time tables, calendars, and appointments to living the moment. From the rigid planning to "maybe around four o'clock on Thursday but it could be Friday at five". Change to "tomorrow", "in a little while" or "just in a minute".

Which minute? The next one or one of the minutes tomorrow, next week or next month? A little while from Thursday, or a little while from next week on? Or maybe a little while from Christmas or Passover?

There is always a tomorrow. So, maybe it's tomorrow from next weeks Monday. But there always will be a tomorrow.

As there always will be a Thursday or Monday or Wednesday, every week, every month. And if you get what you expected a month later from the Tuesday you first expected, it's still Tuesday, or the day after Tuesday or just a little while from Tuesday.

Time definitely does not move. It swamps around, stands still in ponds or floats above our heads where we can not touch it. 

And then the wheel moves, next moment comes. It's another morning, another tomorrow, another while.

What is there to do?

Live this moment and let tomorrow worry about itself.

Time and attention - the most precious things in the Universe

I only have one child, so you would think that I don't have deal with jealousy issues.

Well, somehow my son managed to be jealous to his father, cousins, random adults and even the phone.

Just when I would be talking in the phone, in the middle of the conversation, he would come to me to ask something.

Nothing really important, just some random fact or piece of information he supposedly needed just now.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Or he would be shouting mom, I need help. I need a sandwich. I want you to see this, just about anything urgent, according to him.

The situation would escalate to me yelling at him to be quiet while I talked on the phone and him yelling me back or crying his eyes out because I was a bad mother.

He would actually say that to me, you are a bad mother, he would scream me.

Let me tell you that it can break your heart hear your six year old son, sobbing his heart out and telling you that you are a bad mother.

Deuteronomy 6:7  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 

Other moms would tell me that it would pass.

That their children would do it also.

That it was normal and he just wanted the attention.

I knew he wanted the attention.

But what I didn’t know was, how to give him a feeling that I was there for him but that at that moment I had to attend to someone else.

How to teach him to be considerate, to see things from other person’s point of view, without a sibling?

“The family should be a closely knit group. The home should be a self-contained shelter of security; a kind of school where life’s basic lessons are taught; and a kind of church where God is honored; a place where wholesome recreation and simple pleasures are enjoyed.”~ Billy Graham

Finally I had to sit down and pray.

The situation was out of hand.

I was going against my principles.

I was shouting at my son, getting angry at him.

And he was interpreting it as I didn’t love him, that he didn’t matter enough to me to leave the phone or the other person and give him my attention.

He wanted to be the center of my attention.

But he was at an age that he needed to learn to wait his turn.

“A child needs both to be hugged and unhugged. The hug lets her know she is valuable. The unhug lets her know that she is viable. If you’re always shoving your child away, they will cling to you for love. If you’re always holding them closer, they will cling to you for fear.” ~ Polly Berrien Berends

I had been practicing a stern look with him.

I have always loved Mary Poppins movies and movies and books about nannies and how they would just look someone and they’d be quiet at once.

I thought that was phenomenal.

I didn’t want my son to be afraid of me and calm down because of that.

But I wanted to give him a bodily sign that what he was doing was incorrect; instead of trying to yell harder than he was shouting.

So, I tried the same thing with the phone.

A wise person truly said, “It ought to be as impossible to forget that there is a Christian in the house as it is to forget that there is a ten-year-old boy in it.” ~ Roger J. Squire

I would raise my hand, sort of talk to the hand gesture, combined with the stern look.

Besides this I had a talk with him where I explained that it was impolite of him to interrupt when I was talking with other people or on the phone.

I explained that he was the most important thing for me but he needed to wait his turn.

Then I promised to give him my full attention.

When I was a child, I remember how disappointed I was when my parents wouldn’t keep their promises, no matter how tiny things they were.

Matthew 7:12  “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

This is why I have an absolute, if you give a promise you must keep it, no matter the cost policy.

I never want my son to lose his confidence in me.

If I promise something, I’ll keep it, period.

So, every time, he would stand there.

Looking at me with his big eyes, his lips trembling, sometimes his whole body trembling with the energy charge.

Sometimes he would start talking and I would give him another look.

I believe that if an angel were to wing his way from earth up to Heaven, and were to say that there was one poor, ragged boy, without father or mother, with no one to care for him and teach him the way of life; and if God were to ask who among them were willing to come down to this earth and live here for fifty years and lead that one to Jesus Christ, every angel in Heaven would volunteer to go. Even Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, would say, “Let me leave my high and lofty position, and let me have the luxury of leading one soul to Jesus Christ.” There is no greater honour than to be the instrument in God’s hands of leading one person out of the kingdom of Satan into the glorious light of Heaven. ~ Dwight L. Moody

And when I ended the phone conversation my time would be just for him.

It was hard, for us both.

But what I learned is that the most precious thing for my son was my time and attention.

That was what he craved for and that was all that he wanted.

Maybe it was a minute that he would invent something he supposed came to tell me and run back outside to play.

Maybe it would be five minutes to make him a sandwich and watch him eat it.

Maybe it would take half an hour of reading with him or sitting next to him while he watched the TV.

Proverbs 1:8

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

But if I gave him the time when he asked, he would be perfectly happy to continue without me.

Now he’s bigger and he doesn’t ask my time and attention the same way.

And to tell the truth, it makes me sad.

He’s almost ten, so it’s time he learns to be more independent, to do more things by himself, to not to depend on me.

But being the most important person for your child is something precious.

Something that nothing else can replace.

And I miss it. I miss my baby.

Time is very flexible when it floats

Living in the tropic I can better understand the Oriental idea of time being a wheel. 

Here time doesn't movie linearly, the are no changes with the season. It may rain more one month, it may be a bit colder the next one. Then it will be hot and rainy.

The changes come with the dates, days we commemorate something special, with the changes in the moon and the sun.

People here name their months according to the changes they see in the nature. The is a cloud month (puyu killa), a baby animal month (wiwa killa), a fish month (mihanu killa), a corn month (sara killa), a rain month (tamya killa) and there is even an empty month when nothing grows (mutsuy killa).

Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Luke 12:24-26 (NIV)

The year is a circle and the months are represented in a circular form. Not a line from left to right but a bird's colorful tail.

The moon moves in a circle and in the circle of the moon you can see the changes in the nature. The rain doesn't depend on the season of the year but the season of the moon.

²⁷ “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ²⁸ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! ²⁹ And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. ³⁰ For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹ But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

Luke 12:27-31 (NIV)

Here time doesn't move, it doesn't tick or run, time floats or stays still while the wheel turns around and it's time for the next festivity. There is no rush to prepare it all, because it will come in it's time and rushing around may just spoil everything.

How can you pick corn if it's not time for corn? How can you hunt for ants if it isn't the ant month and the ants won't be ready yet?

In a hot temperature it's wasteful to try to hoard things. If you kill more animals than you can eat and cook at once, it will only spoil and the insects and vermin will have a feast. 

If you plant a seed next to a river you can return when the fruit is ripe and ready to eat. Picking it earlier would only spoil it for human use.

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:13-15 (NIV)

Right now we're at mishki killa, sweet month. The name comes originally from a sweet fruit that grows this season but is now used because of Christmas.

Christmas is one of the special days that mark the flow of the time and tell us that another year has passed.

How this has affected me life? The impact has been huge. First the chafe, the pain of change from thinking the year and time as going forward. Keeping my eyes in the future, planning for today.

The change from time tables, calendars and appointments to living the moment. From the rigid planning to "maybe around four o'clock on Thursday but it could be Friday at five". Change to "tomorrow", "in a little while" or "just in a minute".

¹“Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.
² They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.

Job 14:1-2

Which minute? The next one or one of the minutes tomorrow, next week or next month? A little while from Thursday, or a little while from next week on? Or maybe a little while from Christmas or Passover?

There is always a tomorrow. So, maybe it's tomorrow from next weeks Monday. But there always will be a tomorrow.

As there always will be a Thursday or Monday or Wednesday,every week,every month. And if you get what you expected a month later from the Tuesday you first expected, it's still Tuesday, or day after Tuesday or just a little while from Tuesday.

³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matt 6:33-34 (NIV)

Time definitely does not move. It swamps around, stands still in ponds or floats above our heads where we can not touch it. 

And then the wheel moves, next moment comes. It's another morning, another tomorrow, another while.

What there is to do?

Live this moment and let tomorrow worry about itself.