Amazing Grace was played in church the Sunday after I re-launched this site, sharing my big secret with everyone. If you think I had a dry eye as we all rose to our feet, singing perhaps one of the most recognized and powerful hymns known to the western world, you don’t know that I’m especially prone to crying.
I tear up unexpectedly, at the drop of a hat, particularly when music is involved. Prime example, at the end of the movie Elf, Zooey Deschanel is leading a group singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in the middle of Central Park. The film’s climax is the moment when the skeptical, Scrooge-type “Dad” character in the movie finally joins in and Santa’s sleigh takes flight over the crowd. Every, single, stinkin’, time, I get choked up, overwhelmed with the Christmas spirit. Yes, I’m a nerd. Moving on.
That Sunday after my Independence Day, singing Amazing Grace, understanding the weight of the phrase, “that saved a wretch like me,” I was in a suspended moment. I felt completely full and totally empty, simultaneously. I was whole and time was irrelevant.
Happy tears.
Amazing Grace popped up on my internet radio playlist last week. This time, a different lyric captured me, but brought me to a similar weightlessly full moment:
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.
Again, the gravity of the lyrics opened up a well in my soul. I wasn’t simply acknowledging the concept of eternity, I was briefly touching it, understanding that my pedal-to-the-metal MO will be completely useless in Heaven.
Suspended, timeless, touching a thin place.
This past week, when I find myself overwhelmed, fixated on my t0-do list, I stop and sing in my head. “We’ve no less days,” because there are no deadlines on Heaven’s eternal clock. The world will not end if I don’t cross off all of my to-do’s, but my soul will dry up if I don’t slow down to accidentally wander into timeless moments.
Have you had any timeless moments recently? I’d love to hear about them! Use the comments section to share your stories.
This picture from a trip to San Francisco in 2012 reminded me of being in ‘thin places’.
September 5, 2015, 9:50 am
Joanie, I have had plenty of timeless moments recently. Once I got off of that high speed merry go round of life, I have been able to stop and smell the flowers. I was recently sitting and watching a Blue Heron fishing in a tidal flat. I watched him for about an hour. Later, I thought that I had never done that before. All the best, Shawn
September 7, 2015, 5:55 am
“I felt completely full and totally empty, simultaneously. I was whole and time was irrelevant.” YES. That moment of realization (at the cellular level, accessible ONLY when our brains are quiet) that the complete fullness I yearn for comes only when I empty myself totally, even as Christ did (Philippians 2). That fullness is the three-in-one God Himself, dwelling in me by the Holy Spirit! While we walk this earth we can experience such satisfying fullness only in those suspended moments we allow ourselves to be totally open to His abiding presence. (BTW, I think the reason those moments feel timeless is because we are in perfect union with the One who is above time!) That is why it is SOOOOO important to be attuned to God’s presence with us always; we must be open to Divine intrusions into our oh so important agendas.
Thanks, Joanie, for giving words to what I have so often experienced, but couldn’t quite articulate.
December 19, 2023, 1:16 am
I often go to a far away place that I have never been to, but I always have the feeling as if this is a familiar place.
April 26, 2024, 6:02 pm
I have had plenty of timeless moments recently. Once I got off of that high speed merry go round of life, I have been able to stop and smell the flowers. I was recently sitting and watching a Blue Heron fishing in a tidal flat. I watched him for about an hour.