Adventures in Paradise    Volume 2      #6

Kia ora, our excellent adventure continues with some thoughts on time and how we perceive it. For the last week or so, a little green travel clock has been perched on the top of Ward’s roll top desk. This clock is omni present as its face is always visible whenever we sit at the computer. Its constant ticking is a glaring reminder to me that time is passing and it is moving at what seems to be warp speed. That menacing clock face, with its glow-in-the-dark hands, seems even more frightening as Ward has set it to a New Zealand time zone! Every time that I sit down at the computer, that evil little clock reminds me that it is later than I think. With this weeks’ observation of Halloween, I can’t think of a costume more likely to strike dread into the hearts of beleaguered time-challenged adults than to have someone dressed as a clock ring your doorbell. Yikes!

In the early 1970s, Jim Croce wrote a touching song entitled “Time in a Bottle”. As I recall, Jim penned the words after his wife, Ingrid informed him that he was going to be a father. It was the first conversation that Jim would have with his yet unborn son.

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I’d like to do

Is to save every day till eternity passes away

Just to spend time with you

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I’d save every day like a treasure and then

Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time

To do all the things you want to do once you find them

I’ve looked around enough to know

That you’re the one I want to go through time with

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty, except for the memory of how

They were answered by you

I have always loved that song and it has never meant more to me that it does at the present. Having written about my father in last weeks’ blog, I find that he and my mother and all those who are no longer with me have been upper most in my mind. For some reason, I have been quietly singing Jim Croces’ song to myself and just in the last day or two, I have actually contemplated the meaning of his words.

However much we would like on some occasions, we are never able to save time in a bottle. When I was very young, I used to wish that Christmas day could go on forever. I loved the way that day made me feel. It wasn’t just the gifts, it was the palpable spirit that permeated the season. It seemed perfect. I fantasized that if I could create a world of my own, I would have time stop, or at least slow down on special occasions. I did not appreciate God’s wisdom in actually having time pass. I did not understand that time and the learning that came from days and years of time passing would prove to be invaluable in making progress and growing from the mistakes that would surely be made. What a blessing it is to have time to grow and change.

Jim also talks about eternity passing away, which we know won’t happen and I am grateful for that knowledge as well. I did not have enough earthly time with my father and I am profoundly blessed to know that I have will have an eternity to participate in all of those father-daughter conversations that were left uncompleted in our mortal lives. I can’t wait! Imagine never have to worry about time running out too quickly or not having enough time to complete whatever it was that needed completing. What a beautiful concept is eternity. Those endless days that we will have to spend with each other will be priceless.

So, my box of wishes would be filled to overflowing. It would contain, for starters, a list of all of the people that I have missed spending time with and wish to see. It might contain questions that I forgot to ask or didn’t have time to address. I would want to know that my parents are peaceful, happy and in a good place. My wish list would include meeting for the first time, a grandfather that I never had the opportunity to meet in this life. And as that little green clock keeps ticking and reminding me that I am running out of time to be sitting at this computer, I will be grateful that there will be no time constrains on relationships. Time will not pass away and neither will I.

In 1973, Jim Croce lost his life in a plane crash. His son, Adrain, would have only been about three years old at the time. His song lyrics became strangely prophetic and I can only imagine that Ingrid Croce and her young son would have been wishing that there was a way to uncork a bottle that would release more time for them as a family. As I have thought about this, I hope that they know that Jim still exists and that they will see him again. I know what a comfort this knowledge has been to me. I do not have his permission to quote him, so I won’t reveal the name of the husband who once told his wife that eternity was not a long enough time to spend with her. What a lucky wife!

As always, and now more than ever, we are happy and trying to work hard as we look forward to Monday afternoon when we will board a plane for a very long flight into our new life. Although that flight may seem like an eternity, we are grateful that the twelve-hour flight from San Francisco to Auckland does actually have a beginning and an ending. We are also grateful that our association with each of you has no time limit!

Love, Ward and Susan    Elder and Sister Belliston, about to be serving in the New Zealand, Hamilton mission