iv. “Super” – A short reflection

If you could have any super power in the world, what would it be?

My answer growing up was always the control of time. Why? Because then I could literally control everything, and I could achieve anything that the other super powers had to offer. My parents always thought I would be a lawyer, because of answers like that.

But what wise young me didn’t realize was that we do in fact control time. Sure, we can’t time travel, but time is not something that drags us through it. It is an asset for us, but only if we can see it as such. Time is our perception of how we engage with the world… we made time, and therefor we can control it.

Too often, though, we find ourselves chasing a fleeting spare moment, always seeming to run just out of time as we rush through our busy lives. Time seems to control us.

I remember reading a reflection by a Solomon Islander in one of their newspapers there on their relationship with time. One line that stuck out to me read: “Here in the Solomon Islands, we control time, we do not let it control us.” Having experienced this aspect of their culture by arriving late, yet still early, for multiple sporting event and almost missing my connecting flight home, I would definitely say that the Solomon Islanders control time.

As a byproduct of this control, the Solomon Islanders would appear to the outside world to be some of the most calm souls on this planet. I think this is because they waste little time dwelling on the past or the future, but rather exist simply in the present, as well as beyond time. Outside the Solomon Islander, we are so good about dwelling on our past injuries, picking at scabs and not allowing them to heal. We are also amazing at 5 year and 10 year plans, constantly chasing “happiness” and “perfection,” saying things like, “I will be happy when…” or, “my life will be perfect when…”. The Solomon Islanders constantly chase Joy, in the form of eternal union with Christ. They value people and their stories rather than events and meetings and deadlines. They have a complete faith in GAP, as Evaristo would say: “God Always Provides.”

You know, its funny, that G.A.P. in the moments when you leave a gap for God to provide for you. When we make plans, God laughs, because He knows that what He has planned for us is either what we are planning, or beyond our wildest dreams. But when we make space and time for God to work in our lives, He cries tears of Joy… tears not unlike the Father of the prodigal son. These tears rain down on us in the form of His grace, brightening us and giving life to everything around us. By taking back control of time, we can begin to live in the present, in the presence of the Joy of our Lord, and the graces that splash down all around us. The Solomon Islanders have the dopest super power.