ITLOTC
(In The Life Of The Church)
Advent
To Be More Grateful …
I’m 38 years old. I graduated from high school almost 20 years ago. The end of 2019 is almost here and there is heightened sense of marking the moment because we are switching decades.
My dad died on my 35th birthday. He was almost 70. His dad died around 70. After my dad died, I wondered if my life was half over. Since that moment I have been determined to pay extra close attention to time. To seize moments. That was 3.5 years. While I have reminded myself more frequently that this is all going fast, it has slowed down my experience of time.
I wondered why this is so I started doing research. One of the more significant ideas I stumbled across was the theory of Paul Janet that he put forth in 1897 at the age of 21. Janet reasoned that every additional year we live is a smaller fraction of the total of our lives. Year 0-1 is 100% of our life. Year 1-2 is 50% of our life. Year 2-3 is 33% of our life … year 99-100 is 1.01% of your life. I’m 38 working towards 39 (checks interactive graph). On July 23rd 2020 I’ll have added another 2.63% of my life. This is why the years are so long when we are kids and so short when we get older. According to this theory, waiting 24 days for Christmas for a five year old is experientially the same as waiting an entire year for a person who is 76.
One of the conundrums about understanding our experience of time is that time is subjective, both as an experience and as a concept. On the one hand we can say that time is one of the four dimensions of space-time, but on the other hand time is nothing. It is made up. It is language applied to a perception. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who studies time perception, calls time a “rubbery thing” that changes based on mental engagement.
So what can we do? Anything? Yes and no. Part of the truth is that our brains treat the world differently as we age. Here’s an extensive quote from a qz.com article written by John Mancini on Physics and Time:
“Time is happening in the mind’s eye. It is related to the number of mental images the brain encounters and organizes and the state of our brains as we age. When we get older, the rate at which changes in mental images are perceived decreases because of several transforming physical features, including vision, brain complexity, and later in life, degradation of the pathways that transmit information. And this shift in image processing leads to the sense of time speeding up.”
Or there is this bit from 2011 New Yorker profile on Eagleman
“The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. 'This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,' Eagleman said -- why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.
Now I’m going to complicate the theories of the neuroscientist with my unqualified and uneducated pastor-enneagram opinion. It would seem then, that part of the strategy for combating the perceived pace of time would be to pay attention, or as conventional wisdom would suggest, be present. The enneagram subdivides the nine numbers into three categories to describe something called stance. One of the characteristics that each of the three triad’s posses is a particular relationship to time. I happen to be future oriented. This only exacerbates the problem I’ve been describing. Because I’ve been wrestling with this in therapy, I’ve been working on becoming present.
But I have also discovered this through the enneagram: each orientation to time has its own problems. Taylor is a 2. 2s are in the dependent stance - and that makes them present oriented. So I asked her what’s the drawback to being present. She said that it’s difficult to come up with big ideas and easy to get bogged down or overwhelmed. That makes sense to me when I think about it. We could find something to critique about those with past time orientations as well.
Here is my thesis then. If you want a quality life - if you want time to drip with meaning so you notice it’s occurrence - then you can’t just be present, you must also be grateful. So this is my new years resolution. I want to be grateful. See you in 2020.
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Christmas Eve Service
UBC’s Christmas Eve service will begin at 5:30 P.M. Worshipers can expect to sing of their favorite carols and witness a pageant that is nothing short of magnificent.
Will Your Kid Be a Theatre Star?
Our impromptu Christmas pageant extravaganza will take place on the evening of December 24th. In order for this to be successful we will need a schmorgesborrg of children to participate. Someone to play Jesus, Mary, the angel, the Christmas lobster, etc. If you will be in attendance that evening have a willing participating child, please email taylor@ubcwaco.org so she can assemble her all star cast.
UBC Offices …
will be closed between the week of Christmas and New Years. However, we will have church on the 29th.
ITLTOC Break
The last edition of the ITLOTC in 2019 will be published today. ITLOTC will be off the weeks of 12-24, 12-31, and 1-7. A new edition of ITLOTC will be published next year, in a new decade, on 1-14-20. We look forward to being re:united with our faithful readers at that point.
Youth Word of the Week
The youth did not provide a word of the week this week.
Parishioner of the Week
Dilan Braddock. Best youth pastor on this side of the Mississippi (tied with Hannah) serves his last youth group session Wednesday night (12-18). Silly Dilly, in our hearts forever.
Announcements
Sermon Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Work is Worship
Greeters: Richardson
Coffee Makers: Jessica Washington
Mug Cleaners: Sarah Cooley
Money Counter: JD Newman
Leadership Team
If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.
Chair: Kerri Fisher: Kerri_Fisher@baylor.edu
Byron Griffin: byrontgriffin@gmail.com
Jeremy Nance: Jeremy.J.Nance@L3T.com
Joanna Sowards: jo.sowards@gmail.com
Kathy Krey: kathykrey@gmail.com
Jose Zuniga: jzgrphix2002@yahoo.com
Taylor Torregrossa: Taylordtorregrossa@gmail.com
Student Position: Davis Misloski
Student Position: Maddy O’Shaughnessy
UBC Finance Team
Do you have a question about UBC’s financial affairs? Please feel free to contact any of your finance team members.
JD Newman: JD_Newman@baylor.edu
Catherine Ballas: catherine@refitrev.com
Jen Carron: jen.carron78@gmail.com
Mike Dodson: financeteammike@gmail.com
George Thornton: GeorgecCT1982@gmail.com
UBC HR Team
If you have concerns about staff and would like contact our human resources team, please feel free to email any of the following members.
Erin Albin: erin.albin1@gmail.com
Sam Goff: samuelgoff92@gmail.com
Rebekah Powell: rpowell671@gmail.com
Kristen Richardson: wacorichardsons@gmail.com