One of my very favourite songs is ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’ by Sandy Denny. It has a haunting melody and wonderful words. When you listen to it there is the sudden question again about where has the time gone. It seems that way when Advent begins and Christmas is soon to be upon us.
It has been busy this last month, no let me put it another way, it has been flipping nuts. Busy at work, busy at volunteer positions, busy on credit union system work, and whatever else can fit into 24 hours. It doesn’t seem to slow down. Someone asked my recently about email and how we ever got along without it. One could say the same about a fax machine or a photocopier. These technical beauties have only speeded up what we start to where we finnish. The work is the same, the time to complete is measured not in days but in moments. Our time to reflect on any given subject is not done without effort and our work ethic creeps in so quickly if we think we are reflecting excessively. More gets done but the engine, us, remains the same. Maybe that is why music is such a relief. It does breakdown that invisible inertia that causes us stress. It stops us, if only for a few moments, to reflect in another dimension. If nothing else it gives us the must deserved break without any guilt.
Tomorrow I fight off the historical boxes of ‘stuff’ in the storage room to find the Christmas tree. No crowds to fight, no saw to cut the trunk, no needles akimbo, just true plastic and lights, ornately assembled and stowed away in the ‘original’ carton somewhere in the basement. Ready to quickly give one a hernia because of its weight, it will be dragged upstairs to its holy place in the corner of the living room, close to a wall outlet. Within minutes of plugging the lights of the tree into the electrical grid, Christmas will dawn, sans pine smell. Once again the magic of the season will start. Usually we never put the tree up this early. We are still the old ‘keep the tree up until the 12th day of Christmas’ types so putting it up this early is creating some new family history. But when Fleming arrives from Saskatoon on Tuesday and Nils from Copenhagen on Wednesday it will be the key sight when they step in the front door. That part of Christmas, being with ones’ family, then begins. There is more, always much more, about Christmas. Before you know it though you will be asking yourself, where does the time go?
Tinfoiling 
One would think that modernity’s munificence, especially as it relates to technology, would allow us to work less and spend more time with family and friends. Instead, it seems like the opposite is true. The harder we work, the more we leverage the power of technology, the more (seemingly) time out of our lives is required. Perhaps we’re contributing more…but perhaps we’re missing out on more important things.