Years ago a TV show explored the idea of people moving at super fast speed. They moved so quickly that they were invisible to the show’s regular cast of characters. The only clue they existed was the insect like whine their movements and speech created. From their point of view, the others were like statues with actions so slow they were barely detectable.

It’s not so far fetched an idea. Photographers try to catch snapshots of the darting hummingbird as it dashes from one food source to the next. Its wings beat so rapidly they become invisible. At the other extreme, a sloth moves so slowly that moss grows on its fur. Careful observation for hours might only be rewarded with a toe twitch. I wonder if the sloth views us the way we do hummingbirds, or maybe our movements are seemingly so random that they don’t interest them at all.

In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings there is a creature named Treebeard. He is an Ent, a tree shepherd. He looks a lot like a tree himself. Decisions and actions for him require a great deal of pondering and are not hasty affairs. Time seems to creep by in his presence. Treebeard is what he allows others to call him because his real name is so long that it would take too much time to repeat it. His name tells his whole history.

As we pass through life, our story grows with experiences. On our journey we reside within or pass through the lives of others. Sometimes our pace is so accelerated we are almost invisible. Little or no trace of our presence is left behind. Others see us more like a statue or fixture that has always been there and never changes. For most people, we enter their lives for a season. We don’t always know the results of our relationships. Hopefully we share insight, inspiration, and possibly even help or encourage others in their journey.

If we were Ents, our names would grow longer as we grow older. As humans our life story lengthens with our experiences, but time seems to get shorter. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity states that time slows down for a person approaching the speed of light. Although we may feel we are approaching that speed, for most of us time speeds up the closer we get to the end. Changes on the outside are glimpses of the changes inside.

As a child, summers used to last forever. Now the months fly by, and it is already the New Year. When I finally step out of time into eternity, I want to have made my time count for me and for those whose lives I pass through.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/three-toed-sloth.html

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/01/hummingbirds/klesius-text