Time:
(8,002 words text only)
by Prof.Barie Fez-Barringten: Global University
www.bariefez-barringten.com
Time is one of those concepts and measurements which are
prone to a society that has a subconscious clicking time-bomb expectation of
things happening in concert and possibly reaching some ends and having
beginnings. It is symptom of our civil, cultural and social link. We can co-depently
share time and its measures. It is the metaphor for life and our journey on
this earth. We surrender our very identity being linked to time and its passage
with labels as child, young, middle age, old, and by the years that we have
lived. It even has status and it induces us to think that things are actually
changing by the calibrations of the value of the measurement at any given
intersection. The society I see around me seems to expect certain things to
happen as borders and limits are reached. So, the FCC ordained radio and TV to
identify stations at regular and predictable intervals and station have
traditionally used the top of each hour to change programs with a surgical edge
crossing over an invisible border from one to another hour.
Actually time is only measures of that which lives and is
a measure of life. In fact life and time are comparative terms. I cannot
imagine life without time and a sequence of dispensations by God and events.
Conversely I can imagine the passage of events , God’s dispensations and
natural phenomenon related to the life of the universe and our planet. The two
terms tell something about each other. Yet a life of a person from when it
began to its completion is a measure of its flesh and mortality while time is
of little use when measuring our eternal life and the life of our soul. In our
flesh we seek bench marks for the birth of Go, the universe and our soul in
order to relate the man made constructs of scientific, philosophical and
recorded time. We cannot perfect a beginning nor an end and try as we may
frustrate our factual world with doubts, postulates, theorems and philosophies.
All because we cannot settle on time. Without
a beginning and end time has little meaning. Without a beginning a beginning
there is chaos. In fact this the definition of chaos. Chaos is an array without
a beginning.
It seems then that mortal life with its clear beginning
and certain end justifies time but or immortal and eternal live is infinite and
without time. This story is about my mortal life but the references to my
ancestors extend backward to edges of relations which may explain cultural
influences near to the time in which I lived.
When we change times from daylight savings to eastern
standard, we learn how time is a social and man made standard synchronizing social
and human activities in to relationship. It can be calibrated to nature but is
an accord of man about his links and connections to others.
The contemporary atheist
french philosopher, Bernard-Henri Levy says that an intellect lives in his own
time relating to timeless ideas, literary characters and for me the word of
God, the bible and the characters of the bible.
In fact my life has been
about the difference between being of this age while part of eternity as an
immortal being. My secular life and involvements have breathed through my body
while the world’s clock ticked off seconds, minutes, hour’s days, weeks,
months, years and decades. Yet I have lived in immortal and spiritual reality
seeking God’s mind and will.
The
arts of my time were dramatically of this age (secular) trying not to be
transitional and timeless. The music was no different. The music exuded and
defined the secular worldly love and not the Eros. It applauded commercial and
industrial accomplishments and represented them as idols. Music’s words and
titles reminded you to pay attention to your flesh and its context particularly
emphasizing emotion, feelings, passion and sensorial experiences. Media,
entertainment and recreation blossomed eclipsing spiritual, religious and
timeless classics. The moment and this age became a compulsive social
preoccupation with every one looking to see the latest and momentary “hits of
the day”; fashion and rage of the time. All of this was at the sacrifice of
church, classical music, literature and values. America led the rest in a
cataclysmic charge to destroy and reinvent itself in the moment and by the
moment. It was a kind of existential nihilism replacing power with roughhouses.
The music was peacefully preparing the social psychic for a preoccupation with
mortal, momentary use of it s capital. To spend and consume and not mercenary
care for either eternal life for the future. Planners noted and rung their
hands on how we are spending now the fortune of our future generations.
To some Indian tribes (One
such is the Hopi Indians) time is free flowing without a beginning, middle or
end; but, instead is expressed in the present. In other words, there is only
the present time, the time in which we are living and it has no barriers or
structure. It is the present in which things are happening. In addition, we are
present with those things. I have experienced this time when staying awake for
forty days and forty nights while a student at both Pratt and Yale working on
various design projects involving drawing and listening to music. Time would be
continuous and only punctuated by the light and changes in light. People waking
and sleeping, but all the while I was in the creative process and felt only
exhilaration over life, ideas, visions sand the work before me.
As a child attending grade
school breaks metered the year and added to the differences between seasons. Summer,
semester and weekend breaks were never long enough. While they happened there
was a freedom form regularity and metering and I became aware of the difference
between structured and unstructured living. There was a looming dread of the regularity
and conformity yet to come. Of course seeing my fellow classmates, space and building
after a long break disclosed taller, fuller and stronger bodies.
The girls got prettier and I got taller. I was no longer the tiny kid so easy to push over. I was also too handsome for many young girls to feel safe, and they were right! When I was young I would do anything no matter how long it took. I’d play, walk, travel, romance, read, and sing with the only limit of tiring and/or falling asleep.
The girls got prettier and I got taller. I was no longer the tiny kid so easy to push over. I was also too handsome for many young girls to feel safe, and they were right! When I was young I would do anything no matter how long it took. I’d play, walk, travel, romance, read, and sing with the only limit of tiring and/or falling asleep.
Time will pass irrespective
of our perceptions of its passing whether it be one ore incrementally measured
however I believe if we are very patient and did less thinking we would observe
more of the moment and what seemed to go and come without our notice would be
remembered and the experiences we had the landmarks of the earth’s season, the
natural ebb and tide of our context and our deteriorating bodies.
As a child I could not
understand how a radio broadcast would not continue where it left off when we
shut the radio because my concept of time revolved around me and the sequence
of my own actions. Like wise as a child in
the forties when we traveled through time zones from east to west or
west to east of the United states how programs just finishing would start
again as though they had not begun. I
had and eerie sense of time travel.
An Indians perception and
consequence of time is exemplified when in 1997 Howard and Jackie James and I
escorted Randy and Zed
Park (an American Indian)
to their final exit-only departure from Dhahran Airport.
Christina and I often wait at the hotel, which is about 100 feet from the
departure area of the airport. This time we all decided to get there earlier
and have the buffet, which occurred ON this night. We deposited their two cats, boxes and
luggage at the counter and went to have our dinner. Keep in mind I have known
the Parks for nearly twelve years and the James couple knew them well for over
five years. We were very good friends, who loved to prey, chat and laugh
together. I keep reminding Zed of the time and the asking him to check his
ticket. He assured me repeatedly that we had plenty of time.
Finally, the Parks decided
it was time and after paying the check went directly to the departure counter
only to be told that the plane had departed. It waited and when the Parks did
not board (they already had there boarding pass) they had to unload all there
luggage so it was quit some time that that we were late.
Because of visas, and no
where to stay and having all their money shipped they were stranded.
Fortunately the James had a guestroom for them and it took nearly six months
for one of them and nearly another year for the second to be able to leave to
go back to the USA.
Cheryl Patrick is also of
Indian decent and so is Linda Ramsey’s husband. He is Chipawah. I remember from
a song in Good News the possible location of the Chipawah tribe.
In my own life, I am gifted
with a built in alarm clock. I can sleep at any time and ask god to wake me at
a certain time of number of minutes or hours. I also can estimate the duration
of jobs and tasks to within a fraction of one percent. I am an early riser and
tire in the afternoon needing a brief rest to start the send part of the day.
When I work I am very fast and concentrate fully on my work. Time goes rapidly.
In her wonderful book called
“Alchemy of Mind” Dianne Ackerman says: “The interaction of the brain's 100
billion neurons, she tells us, is like "rush hour on the jammed streets of
Manhattan”.
People are "sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move." Memories are
"the shoals of a life." All true, all vivid. The Guru, Santkeshvedas
refers to the flitting of the mind as to the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman.
It is an apt technique, because the brain is at its
essence a metaphor machine. We look for similarities, patterns, and
generalities because they point to evolutionary survival strategies. Language
itself is metaphor. "Pupil," Ackerman explains, derives from the
Latin word for "little doll," because we see ourselves reflected in
one another's eyes. "Windows" comes from the Norse "wind's
eye," which is what they called the ventilation holes in their roofs.
"Each word is a small story," she writes. William J. Gordon uses
these metaphors in the creative process. I used them in creating works of
architecture.
The human being is nothing
if a learner, particularly in the first years. We even learn things that are
not true. Hence the false memory. If you tell a small child often enough that
he has been sexually molested, he will believe it, and pass any lie detector
test. ”It is this mind in the continuos free flowing time that the metaphors of
the mind leap and become realities. I understood who I was. I knew the mind of
the moment and the one of this context of creation. In that mind I lived. By repeating the
memories I recalled as a small child, the memories I had could be separated
from the many stories my mother told me of my childhood.
According to Ms. Ackerman of
Cornell University, we define consciousness; we
have many minds and identify. Each of
the identities is related to some context and reality we encounter in time. Much
of Ackerman's book explores how the brain works in daily life to enact memory,
personality, imagination, consciousness and creativity. Inspired by various
forms of nourishment, and shaped by culture and individual experience as well
as by genetic legacy, the brain's activities and interactions enable the
"mind" to be "an experience, not an entity. ... An essence, not
just a substance." Perhaps even a participant in the mind of the universe.
It is in these times that
Ackerman’s concepts loom real to me. Barbara Allen enjoyed my poems and
pronouncements during these periods. Roseanne recalls my lucidity and
discipline. It was a different time with out sleep and the mind changed and
coupled with a universal creative soul and spirit.
About our social life, he
ads that many of the dead is alive, while many of the living are dead.
This confirms the bible,
which separates the living from the dead by their status as saved persons.
Saved persons are spiritually alive while unsaved are spiritually dead. In
addition, for the saved, time is eternal and this life a mere small point of
time on an eternal life with Christ. To
a saved person time has a different meaning and life a different significance
than to an atheist. An atheist sees time relative to his mortal life span while
the saved person sees life in relation ship to eternity. It is inverted. This mortal life to a saved
person is a fraction of an eternity while for an unsaved person this life is
huge and very large. Quantitatively the atheist’s mortal life counts for a
great deal while the quantity of the saved person it is differently measured.
About time the bible says:
ps90:4 For a thousand years in
your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
2pet3 8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
2pet3 8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day
The only grasp I had on the fact and concept of time was
that it was running out, dynamic, changing, and relative from one to another
person and it was limited.
John12:56
“You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time? “
“You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time? “
It also seems to be subject to forces well beyond my being
and in a context I could not comprehend. I did not even have a vocabulary to
neither put it in perspective nor reconcile it with events happening day by
day. I was like a fish on the bottom of a very deep ocean dealing within my world
without even knowing that I was in an ocean. It all was revealed ever so
slowly.
My mother tells the story of how when I was about three
and her father visited us on Home Street
and he entered our apartment that the first question I asked him was when he
was leaving. She found it amusing and told this to everyone. I never saw in it any thing funny because I
really wanted to know how much time I had to spend with him. It was my way of building an agenda and
seeing what I we could do in the allotted time.
Even today, I remember it clearly.
I was not trying to be rude or suggest he leave, quite the contrary, i
was so glad he visited because his visits were so rare and I had so many
things, questions and things going on in my little head. He was a dear man and
very kind. I also realized that then
that our time on the earth was limited and we had little time to spend and with
each other. I daily dreaded that my
mother and father would die before me and I was very upset by this fact. I also
lived in expectation of potential accidents and health problems that could end
their lives. Then I would be alone and my world would end. In anomie I could not imagine a world without
my parents until I got older and one of my teachers at school taught us to
prepare for that event by taking our lives into our own hands by being
responsible and caring. That was a change of time for me; one season ended and
another began.
We can recognize all of eternity by what God dispenses and creates. We subdivide and segregate times by landmark events to measure using continuous and repetitive events such as the seasons, movements of stars and planets. It is not the ticking of a man made clock at subdivisions related to the turnings of planets and the beginning and ending of shadows and lights on our planet.
Yet, our lives, and, the
changes that God creates vary despite the planets and the universe; a relatively
consistent metronome.
Like its companion, life,
time is eternal, ongoing and independent.
As it is eternal and
continuous so are we.
It reminds us that there is
more to life than the present or this one time in which we live.
We instinctively realize
that there was a past and will be a future and that the future may be different
than the present and it may or may not include our physical presence to be
authentic or experienced. We on the
other hand may be experiencing time away from the time society regards as time
but part of another kind of spiritual and eternal time. In either case time is a reality or we are
part of either depending on our faith, priorities, and choices. As we can choose life, we can also choose
time. I neither case they continue nor
eternal.
I have come to know the
different ages and dispensations of God's dealings with men through the work of
Finis Jennings
Dake.
I am an avid “Dakes” bible reader and use most of Dakes references.
I am an avid “Dakes” bible reader and use most of Dakes references.
I was introduced to Dakes in
Saudi Arabia
by Ver Corres and I have clung to it ever since.
God has spoken at "sundry times" as well
as "in divers manners" (Hebrews 1:1). The time when He spoke to "the fathers" is distinguished
from the time in which He has "spoken to us". The time in which
"He spake by the prophets" stands in contrast with the time in which
He spake by (His) "Son". In addition, the "time past" is
obviously distinguished from "these
last days" (Hebrews 1:2). To "rightly
divide the word of truth" (2Timothy 2:15) it is essential to regard the times in which the
words were spoken, as well as the times to which they refer.
A
dispensation, administration, or arrangement, during a portion of chronos may,
or may not, be equal to kairos, according as the context determines.
According to Dakes, the
Bible consists of seven distinct administrations where each has its own
beginning and ending; each is characterized by certain distinctive principles
of God's dealings; and, each ends in a crisis or judgment peculiar to itself,
save No. 7, which is without end.
Dakes tabulated the
following:
1. The Edenic state of
innocence.
End - the expulsion from Eden.
End - the expulsion from Eden.
2. The period "without
law" (the times of ignorance, Acts 17:30).
End - The Flood, and the judgment on Babel.
End - The Flood, and the judgment on Babel.
3. The era under law.
End - The rejection of Israel.
End - The rejection of Israel.
4. The period of grace.
End - The "day of the Lord".
End - The "day of the Lord".
5. The epoch of judgment.
End - The destruction of Antichrist.
End - The destruction of Antichrist.
6. The millennial age.
End - The destruction of Satan, and the judgment of the great white throne.
End - The destruction of Satan, and the judgment of the great white throne.
7. The eternal state of glory.
No End.
No End.
"And to
make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath
been hid in God who created all things."—Ephesians 3:9
Time has always been an
important element in God’s plan for man. Such biblical phrases as "in due
time" and "at the time appointed" indicate that God is a precise
God and punctual. True, his concept of time may differ from ours, for a day
with the Lord is "as a thousand
years" (2 Peter 3:8).
We are now living in the
Sixth Probationary Period called the
Age of grace: An age made
very obvious by the lives we lead in an age where we are forgiven and lead the
resurrected life. It is a very different period than before.
The Dispensation of Grace:
The Length of this Period is from the First to the second advent of Christ and
the binding of Satan in the abyss at the end of this age. It has already lasted
over 1900 years.
The
Rapture, the completion of the first Resurrection, the Judgment of the
Saints, the Judgment of Nations, and the Tribulation of Daniel's 70th week take
place at the end of this age. Mat. 4:1; Rev. 19:21; John. 1:17;
The second great
epoch, from the flood to the establishment of the kingdom of God,
is under the limited control of Satan, "the prince of this world,"
and is therefore called "This Present Evil World." Gal.
1:4; 2 Pet. 3:7
The Present Age
sometimes called Parenthetical Dispensation because it occurs as an
aside while the more dominant dispensation takes place. The purpose of this
Dispensation is to gather out a
"People
for His Name" (Acts 15:14),
called The Church.
The "Fullness of the Gentiles," with some Jews, makes
up a "New Body," the CHURCH.
This "New
Body" is not under Law but Grace (Romans 6:14). When Christ took His seat upon the "Father's
Throne" He changed it from a "Throne of Justice" to a
"Throne of Grace," and God's attitude in this Dispensation is one of
favor and "longsuffering" toward wicked men and nations (2 Peter
3:9).
This
Dispensation we are foretold will end in Apostasy, for Christ Himself said that
when He came back He would not find FAITH (the Faith) on the earth (Luke 18:8).
Time’s relativity is no
better demonstrated as when we grow past 20; a 20-year period seems relatively
near relative with other 20-year periods than when we are less than 20 years
old. Then they seem ancient or
futuristic.
As a boy between 1937 and
1947, until I was ten, it seemed that the roaring twenties and the depression
were amongst the events of a distant past.
Not the mere twenty years that had gone before.
Silent movies, radio,
automobile was only just invented and being developed as I grew.
The longer we live the
smaller the relationship of any one event, period, age, or generation is to our
overall life. So too with issues, we tend to understand things in proportion to
the re overall sum of what it is we are viewing in relationship to other
things.
As a child My Uncle Murray
told me how it is for an insect to see the time in which he lives compared to
how we see the time because of its life span.
His is at high speed to us and yet it is normal to him and actually in
slow motion of our way of thinking being that he lives in two days what is
sixty years for us and to him he sees us moving at a pace in such slow motion
as to almost be inanimate. It may explain why insects getaway for m us before
we can catch them. They are moving at a different time then we.
I lived before the oil
industry proliferated and highways, air transport flourished. Time and space were perceived differently.
Foreign trade, Travel and immigration were at a small scale compared to
today. Communication lapses were part of
the tempo of thinking and considering where things were located and access to
them.
There were fewer people and
the institutions to serve and support them.
These chronicles are
vignettes of the times and period God gave me to build my faith and belief in
him. To prepare me for eternity and
hopefully win others to do likewise. These are not Egypt’s ancient pyramids nor
Pulitzer Prize writings but merely a testament to the glory of God and his gift
of life.
As an infant until now I can
sleep very little, always curious and ready to explore and use the little time
God has gifted to live, grow and enjoy his contexts, resources and blessings.
My youth was spent trying to remember and not forget faces, places, names and
emotions i had. Even today, I measure
most events based on worthy to remember or forget. In addition, god gives us
the ability to forget as well as the blessing to recall when he wills.
The bible gives us another
view of time; it is eternity, with time being an infinitely small part of an
infinitely endless time line. In the spirit, we live with God on the eternity
line while in the flesh we live in time. The flesh has “time life”, while the
spirit has “eternal life”
I learned about dispensations from Finis Jennings
Dake (1902-87) who was a Pentecostal pastor, teacher, and author whose most
influential work is the Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible. This study Bible,
containing notes on the entire Old and New Testaments, was first published in
1963.
It is my bible and the one I have bought and distributed
throughout Saudi Arabia.
The Dake Bible is considered the top "Pentecostal Study Bible" by
many. In fact, the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements says,
"His ‘notes’ became the ‘bread and butter’ of many prominent preachers and
the ‘staple’ of Pentecostal congregations."
Dake is very important within Pentecostal/Charismatic
circles.
As for time, God abides in
eternity, which is omnipresent and infinite while time is limited and tiny.
Abraham George once reminded me that while we complain of God’s acting in the
last minute, it is He who is on time and we who are not synchronized to His
time. It is God’s will we find timeliness.
Isiah57
15 For this is what the high
and lofty One says-
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
"I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
God’s grace has rescued us from time into eternity when we are receptive and surrender to His gift.
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
"I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
God’s grace has rescued us from time into eternity when we are receptive and surrender to His gift.
However, this book is
“historically responsible” in that it contributes to the history of it s period
from 1937 to 2000. It gives the period
perspective and identifies the landmarks of the times.
Parts of my life related to
the character of history and were concerned with events in history. As example:
¨ Earth Day
¨ Project management
¨ Architecture as the making of Metaphors
¨ Christianity in the Moslem world
One of the landmarks of this
time is Leaders of Nations and even the Nations themselves:
·
Adolph Hitler;
·
Bin Laden;
·
Chawchesque
·
Heineker, Eric (East Germany)
·
King Khalid
·
Marcos; Mousalinni;
·
Pol Pot
·
Slotaban Melosavitch; Sadam
Hussein
History
History gives my identity
legitimacy. Discovering Europe was discovering
my identity. Each place I have visited and learned I found a tidbit of my self
and its antecedent. I can see that I am
part of a worldwide humanity.
This is my cosmopolitan
mind; seeing my self in the context of the world places, peoples and customs.
Periods are characterized by
dominant technologies, wars, crisis weather systems, etc. contexts are the
settings in which we play out our lives.
Taken together periods and contexts are the external, which provides the
imputs and perceptions of the world around us. We tend to identify life with
these two.
All life has lived in one or
another period and context. My life has been spent in time when one part of the
world has become enabled by an overabundance and access to energy, electricity,
power, credit, food, resources, transportation, communication and information.
Morally, it has degenerated to accept worldwide violence and immorality. The
metaphors follow accordingly and the so do contexts and periods landmarks.
My family’s contexts, my
city, borough, blocks and streets. The
schools and teachers. The women and the cars. The places I’ve e visited and the
people I’ve met. All of these form the landmarks of the period and mark the
time. The music, movies and fashion give
the time away. The cartoons in the
newspaper such as Archie and Tinker’s trolley. Wolds Fairs and wars, etc.
For example, I find parallels between the economy of 1972
and 2004 and the challenges to people that are 35 years of age. I look and see what they do and compare it to
my behavior at t the time.
In 1972 NYC was nearly bankrupt, there was massive
unemployment and we had to change venues and careers to get on with our lives;
eventually we left New York and working for an Insurance Company.
The times are always hard,
challenging and changing. It is what you
do despite the circumstance. Do you surrender, give up, and yield to make some thing happen?
At 35, I did what seemed
like a way toward a better future, a solution to serving and they’re fore a way
to engage society. I remember being concerned about being relevant, significant
and engaged in the reality, rather than the ideals of my imagination.
Henry Classon, in preparing
LME'’ prospectus drew this point: that no one wanted to finance idealist but
people who were actively doing some thing to make a difference and change. I
had yet another agenda, which was to reify my self into the professional I had
spent years training. This is what I did
at 35.
These times have included a
society being taught immorality and recreational sex, consumption, eating,
smoking, driving, traveling, recreation, etc. by the media including
television, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc. These times have desensitized
and trivialized the good, moral, character, and lovely thing. The beauty of the
good old days is not just being torn down and by scorn, derision, shame but
ignored, forgotten eclipsed by badness, madness and budiness. Baudy, vulgarity
and mediocrity reign where elegance, excellence and quality once were valued.
For example, it easier than ever for anyone for practically any reason to
capture the attention of the media a rise to meteoric fame over night. Such fame often results in writing and
publishing a book, movie, etc.
There were times when the
“underdog” came up and was held in high esteem because the underdog succeeded
against all odds. He may or may not have become famous but he would be governing
the chance. Today, it is scandal, shock
and awe which succeeds, not accomplishment. Of course, the are still the Nobel
Peace Prize, Oscars, etc.
In 1938, it was the “Sea biscuit”,
the long shot that made Pimlico and Santa Anita; racetracks, horses, and horse
people permeated the news.
Joe DiMaggio in Baseball;
Joe Lewis in boxing; and Gorgeous George in Wrestling. I recall seeing him with my dad and his
family at the Miami
coliseum. Wow! After seeing him so many
times on late night television is was so interesting to see him in person.
Time and timing is relative
and my Uncle Murray once compared our undemanding of time to compare an
insect’s perception to humans. To an
insect we move very slow and to us they very quickly. We cannot catch a fly because the fly’s life
is lived in such a short time relative to our own and they perceive us moving
very slow as we might perceived a still rock or inanimate bolder. When flying out of our reach they have
examined us very carefully and anticipated our every move long before we very
really reach them. They perceive us in a
different time.
Like wise we perceive other
cultures, languages, behaviors, foods, artifacts, etc. in different times and
perceptions. Others perceive us likewise. When a person dies who has been an
integral part of our lives we are sad. Sad because there death marks passage of
time and an end to a “time”, period, and age in a life. Part of the time of an
life has passed. For example when someone dies who we have not been recently
involved we may not morn. Mourning seems to be connected more to our own than
the dead person’s passing. Many of the people whom I knew who died I mourned
whose lives were woven with my own at the time of there death. Others who I had
not seen for long while or whose lives had been on different tracks I did not
mourn. Yet I often remember them and there person and our lovely time together.
The death of my parents was like this. They had already separated themselves
from me and I mourn that for all of my life. There death did not change what
has already happened. On the other hand the Death of Pastor Bergin and June Donnelly
both hit me hard as they died while we were involved in our relationship. I mourn
all of them in general but at the passing of time with the ones currently
involved. Some thing has ended.
It is only in God and His
word is I able understand the resolution of these many differences and
complexities. God is able to judge and know the differences. I can only live
within His will and trust is His judgement as being the trueth. I cannot, as atheists live outside of God’s
perfect will. I am imperfect, but God is
perfect and so is His will. His time is perfect and I can only pray to expect
his will in His, not time.
In one sense time is fixed
and we are moving linearly along the time line in creating two dimensions as a
point which is moved horizontally and creates a line; a line being a point
moved horizontally, Yet it seems that we are fixed and time is moving past us
at every moment as we notice the results of the turning planet and the changers
in the position of the earth creating minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and
years and seasons.
I am convinced by the word
of God that He wishes to keep us alert to His potential return, watching and
ready because we are certain that He will come but uncertain as to the time.
Therefore, while we are certain about events of the past and His promises of
essential events of the future we are uncertain about the duration between
essential events. We can know the
measurements of microseconds of our breakdown of these durations between full
moons, seasons, sunrise and sunsets but not the subdivisions of God’s major
events that will happen in the future. We live out our mortal lives along a
one-dimensional point creating a line while our soul explores the cosmic past
and future. Each soul that begins its life in mortal flesh begins to live on the
point and move on the time line. There
are just so many variables for all souls in a body and individual time clocks
for each of us. Imagine our life without
any consistent relation to the passage of day and night, winter or summer, and
years.
We would notice ourselves
changing and the world around us changing and would measure events,
dispositions, and decisions made by others and our selves.
In visiting ancient
civilizations we are aware that they are living in a different period from us
and also have a different concept of time, its length, and importance or for
some even its existence.
Some cultures measure
nature’s changes with reference to an ongoing line of consecutive, cumulative
and relative time. They are conscious
only of moons, suns, stars, winds, leaves, growth of vegetation and there own
bodies changes relative to the seasons and the sunrises, etc. but linear and
independent scientific measurable time is foreign and alien to there culture. I
experience these moments in prayer, daydreaming, and during fasting and sleep
deprivation where I have stayed awake for forty days and forty nights. The
world and time is a very different place.
Not measured mechanically but by nature and instinct.
Industrial Age/Oil age and the Age of Barie
This section of my
autobiography should have some different name having to do with something that
affected everyone and of which I was only a part. It should be wide enough in scope and impact
on everyone’s life including my own and relevant to this autobiographical work.
That one thing would have to be Industrialization and its subset specific to
this time energy.
In 1937, the US government
declared solar collectors as useless. Today the collector is so powerful it
could replace every type of fossil fuel energy product (oil, coal and natural
gas). As the world’s thirst and cravings for increasing power, consumption and
control so did individuals. My attitude was different from my elders as I
perceived the new potential of enormous scale and magnitude of a power beyond
human scale. The sense and meaning of Buckminister fuller’s “The whole is
greater than the sum of its parts” resonated and proclaimed soaring rockets,
endless highways, space and earth travel,, anonymity and technisms, jibe talk, etc.
Oil was first found in Kuwait in 1928 after signing an
agreement with Kuwait
to explore for oil on December 23, 1934. Kuwait became Japan’s number
one supplier of oil. In Jubail there is an
office of the Arabian Oil Company which is actually the Japanese Saudi oil company.
When I was a manager at gulf John Carpenter who was an employee of Gulf decided
to stay on with Kuwait bank and Kuwait
Oil when the government of Kuwait
nationalized the Gulf Oil Company in Kuwait. Later Ron Brocius who
worked for me in Houston also went to work for the Kuwait Oil Company.
During that period Paul Valerie visited and did survey
work of the facilities and showed me pictures and his report of support
facilities. I was under the impression
that they facilities were very primitive and low in quality.
Using the information from a
report by the department of physics at Rutgers, the state university of New
Jersey about energy consumption and sources of renewable energy it diagrams how
in 1900 at the dawn of the industrial age there were 1.6 billion populating the
earth because fossil fuels spawned electricity use in industry, transport,
food, and medicine and began to allow for now habitable areas to be settled. By
W.W.II and 1950, there were 2.4 billion and the introduction of nuclear power
and population spread through commercial air transport. The year of my birth,
on May 6, 1937
Hindenberg crashed and burned in Lakehurst,
New Jersey and initiatives were
begun to both change sources of fuel and further develop fossil fuel and
hydrogen toward developing a hydrogen economy.
In fact, the Industrial revolution had already begun in 1880, about a
half-century earlier. However, this period was really cranking it up.
I was born in darkness and
as I grew, the world got brighter and brighter.
Highways proliferated and so did the automobile and although much
innovation had already occurred, new technology emerged based on the abundance
and demand for energy and its efficient use. There was more of everything and
it all went faster and was more accessible. Things started disappearing and
soon impatience developed to rid of the old and make space for the new.
Cataclysme was unleashed in government, corporations and planning. Education
spoke of letting educational methodologies run amuck so that they well reveal
there own faults and be replaced by new methods and technology. Communism and
dictators had already replaced feudal regimes and the world knew how to control
atomic energy and mass destruction. The world during this period has been a
potpourri of combinations and types of social, economic and governments systems
and ideologies. As varied in type as in size and access to wealth and
resources. Varied in capability to govern and keep their pace. In addition,
varied in ethnicity, religion and tolerance for others living with and skirting
their borders.
That the next century is
very likely to be shaped as much by the move away from fossil fuels as the last
century was by the development of a fossil fuel economy.
My period is really the post
industrial revolution period called by some the Oil age with a steel age
mentality, which included sub ages and mini periods. All of these depended on
the industrial Revolution steel age and fossil fuel. The economy of the USA, western
states and most of the world increasingly developed into hungry fossil fuel
economies.
The world after the
industrial age, which we are currently experiencing, will be remarkably different:
1929-1942: Great Depression
Magnetic Tape - 1931
Atomic
Bomb - 1934
Nylon
- 1934
Photocopier - 1938
1939-1945: W.W.II
Loran
- W.W.II
Computer -1942
1945-1989: Cold War Era
Microwave - 1946
Compact Disc - 1960s
GPS
- 1978
Pacemaker - 1950
1940- Present: Information Age
VCR -
1956
The period just
proceeding the age of energy was the steel age which was dominated by the
robber barons and characterized by corruption, ruthlessness and predatory
proclivity and nurtured the twisted ideology of an imperial warfare-welfare
state. All of this ran its course until I was born and W.W.II.
Today’s generation
of human beings is acting as if it is the only generation of human beings – and
indeed the only species – that matters.
The world after the
industrial age will be very different from the world of today. Today, there are
“change managers.” Whose mission is to prevent the collapse of the industrial
world and today’s large human population?
Highways, cities, villages
because of energy, oil to power autos, and fertiliser to feed. The anomaly of
these events persists today and affects my life as populations increased in
size, demographics changed due to migrations, shifts of haves and have-nots
globally.
Music, culture and life
styles based on large populations, public and less private life and customizing
of cloths, culture and food. More things are international and globally
compatible. Access is increased to what
was formerly exotic and forbidden.
The characteristics of this
age affected the values and gave license and opportunity for the growth of
differing values and led my parents and community to deal with these conditions
as they occurred. They affected our family, our self-esteem, our orientation to
our family and cultural values, and shaped our decisions for dealing
economically with our work and home.
Geo-Political Changes
currently in the making:
1.
Mid-east Israel and Palestine
2.
Arabian Gulf including
Afghanistan, Iraq, Persia, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan
especially noting the free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq.
3.
China: with an eye toward an
alternative out of Saudi in 1985 while under contract with Arieb, I subscribed
to an English language version of the People’s Republic of China news
paper and to the US
infomation service of the US
govt. I discovered that china was building several mega Industrial cities throughout
china employing million s of chines and foreign national coupling them on a ten
to one basis for education and production. I also responded to want ads and did
get an offer form an architectural firm in Beijing who offered me a high salary but I would
have to barter my income by treading on the commodities market to receive my
pay in the USA.
Trying times
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There are times in my life when
I had trials; where I had to do something and I did something noble.
4.
I did not fire Garth but
rather rehabilitated him
5.
I did help my fellow
students to find a job
6.
I did not take drugs
7.
My father always did the
“extra thing” in his work for his customers, children and drivers.
8.
Christian always helped me
tell the trueth by correcting me by prodding or making remarks
9.
Father did not abandon my
mother
10.
Mother did not abandon her
children
11.
I learned not to love but to
be “noble’
12.
Balance the relationship
between my parents; my father in his unhappiness and my mother in her grief.
10. I learned
that there were people who had neither shame nor guilt and that I had both to
one degree or another
11. I learned
that there were people who had an extraordinary amount of shame and guilt.
There were movies that dealt
with time:
¨ The Time Machine
¨ The Day The Earth Stood Still
¨ The Shape Of Things To Come
¨ Ground Hog Day
¨ The Times Of Our Life: Jimmy Stewart
¨ The Man Who Could Work Miracles
¨ Fred Mc Murray going back in time
¨ Wild West
I learned to focus on time
as I made tapes for radio and demos for disc jockey work. I learned to time my
presentations by seconds and to beat my own time to meet electronic connections.
In Saudi for Westerners accustomed
to the Gregorian method of tracking weeks and months the Hidrah year of 1487 compared to 1992 brought
comparisons and contrasts. The way of telling the beginning and the end of a
month by the new moon seemed primitive and heathenistic. However the shift of starting
the week on Saturday after the Friday Sabbath and the weekend celebrated on
Thursday and Friday was the most unusual. For the expat Thursday became
Saturday and Friday became Sunday. Catholics celebrated on Thursday
evening while Christians worshiped on
Friday. For many over religious protestants they held there services on Sunday
evenings. All of this was often the subject of comedy and jokes amongst Arabs
and Westerners alike. Many of us doing
international business and communications would actually have a four day
weekend or a seven day work week depending on your work and the time of year.
On Ramadan where the Saudis celebrated with a all day fast expatriate non-Muslim
made up the work by covering for the absent Saudi by working two shifts of the
work day. So that the Saudi who came to work after sunset could have the expat
there with him till past midnight
to help him make up the work. For example at KFU we held many classes in the
evening.
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