The Tyranny of Time
It seems you can’t go a day anymore without running into someone who complains about being too busy or not having enough time. To say the modern American is overextended is the understatement of the year, yet never has a culture done so much to accomplish so little of value.
By contrast, each year I go on retreat to a Trappist monastery in Virginia, and I am always struck by how outside time they seem to live. They pray slowly, they walk slowly, they even eat slowly. When I first arrive each year, I find I have to make a conscious effort to slow down and try to put myself at their pace. Although I am sure they have plenty to do, they do not seem to have succumbed to the tyranny of time; in a way, they are already living in eternity.
All of this came to mind recently when I read something by St. Thomas Aquinas:
In Hell true eternity does not exist, but rather time.
- Summa Theologica I, q10, a3, ad2
