Time, Eternity, and Renewal

The Heavenly Banquet

In this episode Chad Rhodes and Charlotte Elia mark the beginning of a new year by reflecting on Christian themes of renewal, the relationship between time and eternity, and the contemplative life as a counter to our time-bound existence.

Chad: It’s a great act of faith to live in the moment without bringing the burdens of the past or the fears or worries of the future into that moment. Certainly that’s part and parcel of contemplative practice but I think faith in general.

As I said, God is always present now. God’s not present yesterday. There is no yesterday. God’s not present in the future. There is no future. There’s only now. When the future comes, it will still be now. The moment we are given in time is in some sense connected to God’s eternal now. And maybe we can think of this world as our entrance into an eternity of newness, of new beginnings, of God’s ever new, eternal now, eternal freshness.