Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

“I place the Future in the Hands of God,” I read, gazing down at the phone in my hand at A Course in Miracles workbook lesson 194, one of my least favorite lessons.

At my feet, my new puppy Morgan continued to chew on my clogs, now and then pausing to nip at my ankles and heels, as I sat on the cement wall of the flower bed beneath an oak tree a few blocks from home where I inevitably ended up nearly every day. Soaking in the panoramic view of the Front Range it so generously delivered, tinseled now with the last strands of snow. Above the battleground, so to speak, only without my inner Teacher, who, despite my fairly constant appeals, appeared to have gone into permanent quarantine with no internet access, not so much as a Zoom class.

“I place the Future in the Hands of God.” I repeated the title out loud, as if the sound of my own voice might better imprint its incomprehensible contents on my resistant gray matter.

And damn it all if I didn’t realize once again how difficult—OK, impossible! —surrendering my will, my need for control, seemed in practice.

In theory I grasped the inevitability of placing the so-called future of this increasingly insane world we dreamed up in the hands of a benevolent, all-inclusively loving God. An undifferentiated unity outside the dream that didn’t know a thing about our preposterous “tiny, mad, idea” of separation that appeared to have had real, guilty consequences. Forcing us to hurl our imaginary individual “selves” into an alternate, dualistic world filled with bodies dueling for survival, competing for relative innocence to avoid the punishment we all secretly believe we have coming. Hell-bent on proving we exist apart from God but it’s not our fault, it’s, well—God’s. Or one of my favorite substitutes. My nearest and dearest’s who always fail me in the end. My neighbor’s, my boss’s, my government’s, their government’s; this really bad novel of a coronavirus! This adorable puppy who nonetheless nearly chewed off my toes after peeing again on the floor before we fled home, right after I took him out to go potty and he threw up his kibbles.

“There has to be a better way,” I said, rubbing Morgan’s belly. “But placing my future in the hands of God?  I mean, seriously?”

The dog cocked his head, let out a sharp bark of solidarity, followed by a soft growl.

I followed his gaze to where my inner professor had suddenly materialized (six feet away, of course), following a nearly four-month campus shutdown.

“Where have you been?” I asked. OK, whined.

He wore a cloth mask like mine (reasonably priced on Amazon but currently out of stock) over mouth and nose, in kind compliance with the embodied human condition we still experience ourselves in. And no doubt to prevent me from morphing into Sanitizing Warrior Susan.

“You never call, you never write,” I said. Even though a part of me knew the futile nature of guilt tripping this man.

Although occasionally aware of his invisible healing presence these last few months, I hadn’t “seen” him all year. A year that began with unexpected health issues that consumed my attention followed by the sudden death of our little dog Kayleigh at the end of February, followed by the still cascading effects of a pandemic that defied the artificial boundaries of time and space, borders and income, race and ethnicity. Political affiliations we dreamed up to define us and mindlessly kept vehemently, often viciously defending. As if they still meant something beyond the significance, we keep giving them in our petulant attempts to prove we really do exist apart from our one loving Source and Self but it’s not our fault—its theirs! Our looming differences proof positive of the reality of separation (more prevalent than ever in them than me/us, of course), my anger and defense righteously justified.

During the lockdown that ensued in March, as my husband, his business deemed “essential,” continued to go into work (thankfully still bringing in income) but regularly failing to take the precautions I deemed necessary, I found myself anxiously struggling to outwit the virus. My anxiety and blood pressure at an all-time high, my efforts to try to protect our vulnerable bodies from this invisible predator through obsessive sanitizing eclipsed all other goals. Even as I reminded myself again and again that I had asked for a better way of living and relating in this world some time ago and already been answered.

I had dedicated myself to A Course in Miracles mind-healing Answer, the daily, often hourly task of changing the purpose of my life from the imprisoning ego thought system of one or the other to a classroom of true forgiveness. An ongoing practice of questioning my addiction to blaming ever-changing outside forces for my distress. I had reminded myself again and again that nothing outside me really has the power to rob me of peace, and asked for help from the Teacher of forgiveness within who seemed so far away to experience my dream sequences peacefully, as he does. And yet I persisted in robotically sanitizing, infuriated anew, hour by hour, day after day, each time my husband walked into the house and failed to follow the recommended protocols I believed could keep us safe. Each time our leaders failed to, well, lead us the hell out of this mess they’d made, or at least failed to respond to in time to contain!

“And now you want me ‘to place the future in the hands of God?’” I said.

His brows shot up the way they do.

I thought about the recent Fourth of July holiday, the pandemic version that is. Weeks of unrelenting backyard fireworks that sounded more like canons had offered a painful reminder of the continuing legacy of brutal racism no longer possible to rationalize or deny. Otherwise, though, the actual holiday not unlike the pandemic version of Saint Patrick’s Day, my husband’s birthday, Easter, Mothers’ Day, Memorial Day, Fathers’ Day, my birthday and every day before and after and in between. Just me and my husband and our long-standing differences joyfully sequestered inside together even now to avoid the record-breaking heat.

Despite having set my intention, as I do each morning, to see things through the eyes of my loving inner Teacher who seemed to have finally appeared beside me over the paranoid protector of sin, guilt, and fear ever ranting in my tiny, little head, the brisk three-mile walk I’d taken earlier, intended to nourish endorphins and strengthen my heart, had delivered instead merely another romp with the ego. One after another, my fellow dream figures appeared to have tossed all social-distancing and mask-wearing protocols to the potentially toxic wind as they ran and biked past me in close proximity and I struggled to maintain the six-foot rule. Donning the clammy, claustrophobic mask I hated as much as the next guy whenever I spotted one of them.

My inner professor’s hearty laughter brought me back to the present.  I suspected he’d been eavesdropping on my thoughts again but he was playing tug of war with the puppy who had latched onto the bottom of his robe.

I thought about how much I missed my daughter, how difficult it seemed to accept not knowing when I would see her again, the unlikelihood that Thanksgiving and Christmas would prove any different this year than all those other holidays the beast of 2020 had already devoured. She and her fiancé had been observing Washington state’s safety protocols for months and were considering driving out from Seattle to visit for a few days, camping at a couple of remote areas on the way, before fall brought possibly even greater outbreaks and risk. Would they be safe? Would we?

“I place the future in the hands of God,” I whispered, trying it on again, even though I knew the statement had nothing to do with divine intervention, imaginary forms and behaviors, and everything to do with my decision-making mind.

In truth, I was having a lot of trouble rooting myself in time and space when each day seemed a repeat of the previous one. My friends, too, complained about how hard it was to remember the time of day, let alone the day of the week.

“Does anybody really know what time it is?” I mused, strains of the old Chicago song echoing in my head. “Does anybody really care?”

My Teacher smiled, shrugged.

The illusion of time and space had never seemed more unreal really and yet …

“You had a question, though?” he said, Morgan crashed out on his lap now, all three pounds of him. War over, leaving only winners.

“I honestly can’t remember,” I said, just so relieved to see him again, really. Grateful to be sitting here in the shade with him and my puppy in this beautiful park on this beautiful summer day. Above the battleground, you know? For the time being, anyway.

“What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes.” (A Course in Miracles workbook lesson 194, P 7)

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