On Times Past

"Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
The long years have passed like swift draughts
of the sweet mead....
Who now shall refill the cup for me?" ¹

"Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze." ²

The flow of time sometimes brings a lingering sadness and a desire for the past. Most, I think, have known this desire; for "the hours pass, and the days and months and years," says Cicero, "and times past cannot be regained, nor can the future be known." Why do we have this desire? And will it ever be satisfied?

"And when I die, and when I'm gone,
There'll be one child born and a world to carry on,
There'll be one child born to carry on." ³

Perhaps this is the answer: an endless cycle from birth to death, life to life, and time to time. But this is not what the heart desires. We enjoy the present but desire the past; love each new life but mourn at each death.

We meet death not only in the loss of life. Death comes at the loss of each year, at the end of each day, at the passing of every moment. Death is what life is full of. So it has always been: we live but to die; each moment dies even as it is born. So it will continue, age upon age, life upon life, time upon time, until time ceases. Must it be so always? Is the reality indeed so unequal to our longing?

What is this longing? What is the reality it longs for? There is nothing extraordinary about times of the past, nor in their loss; and each present moment, when it departs, will become part of that elusive longing for the past. This present does not satisfy the desire now; once past, how could it satisfy the desire if it were to be regained? Each of our other desires can be satisfied: if we are hungry, we may eat; if we need love, we can be loved. But when we think we desire the past, we find the past will not satisfy the desire. The desire must be for something else. But it is not in the present or the past. All desire must look to the future, yet this desire is not satisfied by the future. So what can it be? If past, present, and future fail us, we must look beyond them. Our desire must be for something outside of time.

But how can we find the source of our desire if it is outside of time? We are bound by time and cannot leave it. Our life is a part of time; we cannot go beyond time and yet remain in this life. Therefore the fulfillment of our desire must be beyond life—and to pass beyond life we must first pass beyond death. There is both the riddle and the answer: there is death in life; there is life in death.


¹ "Galadriel's Lament" by J.R.R. Tolkien
² "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof
³ "And When I Die" by Peter, Paul and Mary