Somewhere in time

     

It’s the name of a cozy breakfast place on a hill-slope near Old Mystic Village in Connecticut. But don’t ask me precisely where it is, or when I first creaked open the main door (which is on the side, to divert icy blasts in winter). 

  The first thing you see as you walk in is a clock on the wall, without the digits that normally mark the passing hours and minutes. The numbers are haphazardly heaped in one lower corner, alongside a mischievous Whatever.

  What I do remember is that in these Mystic woods it’s always breakfast time, despite what the clock says.

  You find your own table, serve your own coffee, and invent your own grin for the teen-looking waitstaff who probably created the mischievous signs spread across the walls:

Smile, it confuses people;

Happiness is homemade; and,

Once you lick the frosting off of a cupcake, it becomes  a muffin, and muffins are healthy.

  It’s the sort of place where you quickly and happily let go of time—relegate it to the anywhere-ness most of us should visit more often.

  After all, is there any topic more tossed around and agonized over than our management of time?—its elusiveness, its pressures, and its frustrations. Do our daily lives ever settle into a rhythm that we might call Organized? Calm? Uncluttered?

       Modern technology is often seen as the key to the future. Yet, as it becomes more entrenched in our lives, even ardent proponents support tech-free retreats such as the March 6 observance of the 11th National Day of Unplugging. Purporting to be a path to efficiency, technology has a way of controlling us, rather than our controlling it.

  Also, we now have a plethora of books on the subject of clutter, along with a television series on “tidying up,” which has found a ready audience.

  But for me the book that offers the soundest wisdom and discretion in defeating the pressures imposed by time is the Bible, which includes King Solomon’s assurance that with a spiritual approach our “sleep shall be sweet” (Proverbs 3:21, 24).

  We also have Jesus' invitation to all who “labor and are heavy laden” to turn to him as a source of rest” (Matthew 11:28)—the kind of rest that comes from being refreshed by a spiritual understanding of God.
      This leads to a mental stillness in which we feel the Father’s love calming fearful, anxious thinking of any kind.

After all, isn’t this approach wise enough and healing enough to be applied at any time—not just within the drifting aroma of bacon and eggs?