Raise your hand if this is your favorite time of the
year. Most people I know love this time of the year,
approaching it with as much enthusiasm as … well as a kid thinking of the
brightly colored packages Santa will leave under the Christmas tree. But this time of the year also comes with a price, and not just a monetary
one. In the flurry of activity between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, there never
seems to be enough time to check off everything on our to-do lists. There’s
always one more gift to buy, one more holiday party to attend or activity to
do, one more Christmas cookie to bake, one more Christmas card to address, one
more Elf-on-a-Shelf scenario to come up with, one more, one more, one more …
The song may say that this is “the most wonderful time of the year,” but it
could also be argued that this is the busiest time of the year.
It’s a coincidence, then, that Mitch Albom just happened
to release his new book, The Time Keeper,
and I just happened to see it at Costco and I just happened to request it from
the library and it just happened to come in for me last week and I just
happened to finish it in two days. Coincidence … right … Ever since reading Tuesdays with Morrie, I’ve been a Mitch
Albom fan. The tales his novels tell are poignant; the characters he creates
are believable, everyman characters; and the messages his stories impart
resonate deep within you, making you reflect on your life and how you live it. The Time Keeper is no exception. Telling
the tale of Father Time, the man who “sinned” by trying to measure “God’s
greatest gift,” Albom’s latest novel examines how we have, to borrow an idea
from the novel, turned time into an industry and encourages us to examine our
own ideas of time, how we spend it, and whether we spend it wisely.
I couldn’t think of a more perfect book to read at this
time of the year, especially as the year winds down and we begin to think about
New Year’s resolutions and what we want to accomplish next year. If you’re a
reader, I encourage you to pick up The
Time Keeper and read it. (I actually encourage you to read all of Albom’s
novels, especially Tuesdays with Morrie
and Have a Little Faith.) If you’re
not a reader, I’ve pulled out the quotes from the book that hit me the hardest
and placed them below—at least read and reflect on them. Trust me, your time
will be well-spent in either endeavor.
Quotes from The Time Keeper
Soon man will count all his days, and then the smaller
segments of the day, and then smaller still—until the counting consumes him,
and the wonder of the world he has been given is lost.
As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of
lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart.
It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is
supposed to be.
But a man who can take anything will find most things
unsatisfying. And a man without memories is just a shell.
Knowing something and understanding it were not the same
thing.
“I would have given my life.”
“Would you have taken it?”
“No, child,” he said. “That is not ours to do.”
Time is not something you give back. The very next moment
may be an answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important
part of the future. … hope.
Without loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we
have.
Man wants to own his own existence. But no one owns time.
When you are measuring life you are not living it.
There is a reason why God limits our days … To make each
one precious.
