#BringThemHomeNow

Apr 21, 2010

Eternity Can Wait

Eternity Can Wait
© Rabbi Menachem Creditor

There are moments that grab hold of you and demand attention.  They are unpredictable, volatile, and magnetic.  Once encountered, they are forever.  But they are also ephemeral.  They are not meant to be endured, nor are they, in a real sense, "real."  These moments of "Eternal Return", of some yearned-for primal experience are inherently about alternative timelines.  They are only alive in the past and in the future.  There is no present for a mythic moment – it is too attached to Eternity to be limited to 'now.'

This is "mythic time."

Trying to live in Mythic Time is like trying to breathe in a Mikveh.  The sacred womb of water envelops, holds, caresses, transforms, invites, offering everything always.  But it is not endurable.  It is not a place of engaged living.  It is a liminal space, a threshold.  Immersion in Mikvah is a consuming, frightening, bare, illuminating encounter with Eternity.  It is a disengagement from the world.

Mythic Moments, liminal encounters, are not meant to last.  But they are tastes of Eternity, of boundarilessness.  They are steps out of life into Heaven, but they are too charged to be helpful in an ongoing way. 

Liminal space is 'not here nor there.' And attempting to live in the Mythic moment is the same as ignoring real moments in time, real opportunities and obligations and relationships – missing the person before you in the name of swimming in boundarilessness. 

In the World to Come there are no distinctions, which is literally Divine.  But, in this life, we are called to Live fully, to be present in every possible immediate moment.

Liminality is only for visiting.  It is a hint of the World to Come.

Eternity can wait.  Today is real and right here.

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

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