Yale’s
logos
Undergraduate Journal of Christian Thought
λ ο γ ο ς
is Greek for “word.” The disciple John used “Logos” as an epithet for Jesus, invoking language as an image of incarnation, the Word made flesh. In Christianity, Logos became personal. Because Christ clothed himself in flesh, he became a life giving light to us, revealing the truth of all things.
OUR MISSION
The Yale Logos takes on this name because our Mission is also personal and incarnational. We believe that by loving Christ and our fellow learners passionately with our whole heart, soul and minds, we align ourselves with Yale’s pursuit of truth and light.
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2 Time: 2024
letter from the editor
“ItisthegloryofGodtoconcealamatter; tosearchoutamatteristhegloryofkings. Astheheavensarehighandtheearthisdeep, totheheartsofkingsareunsearchable.”-Proverbs25:2-3
Time does not make sense to me—even as a Christian who is convinced humanity is eternal. In fact, I’m not sure anyone I’ve talked to can make sense of time either. And yet our existence within it is inescapable.
The closest image I would posit to understand such an existence as ours, in time, is existing in a snowstorm. As I see it there are three main aspects of a snowstorm: (1) the discovery of the storm, (2) the preparation for being in the storm, (3) the physical traversing through the storm. Each of these three aspects directly correlates with how we experience time. Now, all of us have experienced time, but maybe not all of us have experienced a snowstorm, still, we all have expectations of how we would react in a given scenario—in time, or in snow. And we react, or expect to react, a certain way because that is how we make sense of our existence. We experienceand we react.
Imagine it with me. It is morning and you wake up as your hand meets the icy surface of the windowpane. You pull it away and examine the situation, blinking furiously as your eyes adjust to the light. Snow! Excitement and fear rush through your body as you realize each choice you make will either cause you to enjoy this new, fluffy weather, or dread every bit of it. You decide you want the former, but that means you need to be prepared. You pick out the most layers you can imagine comfortably wearing. You leave with ease, and no rush. You watch the flakes fall and try to catch some on your tongue. You breath deeply and let the cold air bring life back to your lungs.
Or maybe you didn’t look outside before leaving and you left in a rush just to find out you have to trek 2 miles through a thick layer of snow wearing only a pair of high-top converse. Would you not curse the snow as it fell into the pillow around you? Or maybe you looked at the expansive sheet of snow and decided
to call in sick, getting a Dean’s Excuse from what big assignments you might’ve missed.
How do you react to the snowstorm? Do you want to ignore the affects of time and create an excuse, a “new reality” that you think would make you most happy? Do you find yourself dreading the reality of what is out your window—how people might view you or what bad news might await you? Or do you acknowledge your limited time, your finiteness, and prepare for a way to enjoy it best? I have done all of those things in different moments. I don’t say yes to sledding with friends because I’m too busy catching up on the work from that class I skipped. But I want to experiencethe storm better.
We all experience the snowstorm—or our existence in time—very similarly. Snowstorms bulldoze into your life, even if you are up-to-date on the weather or have your own plow. Time likewise shakes us up—in confronting it in the big decisions we make (about relationships or careers) for our lives or in the death of the lives of others.
Although I can’t quite make sense of time by being Christian, I do see an answer for what it looks like to experience it in a richer way. It all starts with looking outside of space and time, or looking at God. How did He live as Jesus on Earth and how does He approach time? We will see in [article title(s)] what that might mean for us. Even still, God is more mysterious than humanity is complex…so exists the question mark that is time. In other articles, like [article title(s)], this question will be probed.
It is our hope that you react to our words and that they may bring you to reflect on your experience in time.
In Truth in Love,
Hannah Scarborough Editor-in-Chief Emerita
Time: 2024
staff & contributors
masthead
writers
design
Design by Mandy Osuji & Hannah Scarborough
Design Team: Gavin Susantio, Emma Ventresca, Isaac Oberman
Photography Credits: Gavin Susantio & Philip Aijian (“A Tale of Two Calendars”)
Hannah Scarborugh
Tori Cook editor-in-chief emerita
Zeki Tan
Emma Ventresca
Gavin Susantio
Justin Ferrugia
David Woods
Jack Batten
Yoska Guta Isaac Oberman editor-in-chief executive director head of engagement
A Tale of Two Calendars
Indonesia (my home country) is a country without seasons. Technically, there are two seasons—dry and rainy. But it might be dry or rainy at any given period of time. Indonesia is located by the equator, so much so that the sun sets and rises at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. respectively, everyday. I can tell the hour of day just by looking at the sun. The leaves are green all year round, and, in our history, there has never been a need to hoard food before winter and harvest as much as one can during spring.
I’m a first-year student at Yale, and now I face an altogether different way of living—my closet has increased fourfold as a result. There is a set of clothing for every season, and so my closet has both expanded and divided. I never had this problem before, but it’s just part of living life by the seasons.
It took me a while to really appreciate this varying of the seasons. It wasn’t until I became a student of tea that I did. I study chado, or “The Way of Tea,” which revolves around serving a Japanese green tea called matcha. Its intricate, meditative, and aesthetically pleasing rituals attest to its enduring legacy as the oldest tea practice still observed today. In my formal training as a matcha student, I had to learn how to arrange my tea utensils (the tea bowl, water ladle, metal kettle, etc.) based on the seasons. For instance, during the warmer seasons, one would need to place the tea kettle farther from the guest, while during the colder seasons, closer to the guest. One would need to choose utensil designs and arrange a flower display based on the seasons. A famous instance of a flower arrangement is a tea master’s juxtaposing a white, frail flower with a red, vibrant flower during the end of the calendar year, marking death and new life. [1]
Gavin Susantio
Much like chado, moving from one city on the equator to another city in the northeast takes many considerations and is quite the work. Going from living in one place without seasons— to another with many seasons—is living life by a completely different calendar. This idea of entering multiple calendars is seen as a given in one’s spiritual life. St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest theologians in Western history, maintains that there are two cities: the City of Man and the City of God. [2] Accordingly, both cities function under different calendars that involve distinctive seasons that color the world and guide our day-to-day life. Just as we have natural seasons, Christians have liturgical seasons.
Are the seasons integral to human life, and if so, why? And why, in particular, are liturgical seasons integral to Christian life?
Liturgy can mean “the work of the people” but also “the worship of the divine,” with the life of Christ serving as the content for the liturgical seasons that form the basis of the spiritual disciplines and public worship of the Church.
Whether we know it or not, whether we are Christian or not, we are living in a clash of calendars: the academic calendar, the liturgical calendar, the “secular” calendar, the Gregorian calendar, etc. Each calendar marks the beginning and end of different seasons throughout the year. There are seasons for festivities (such as Halloween and Santa-centered Christmas) in the secular calendar, for exams and long holidays in the academic calendar, for Lent and Advent in the liturgical calendar. Each is meant to prepare us and immerse us in a particular way of living in allocated times. In the liturgical calendar in particular, there are about six liturgical seasons: Advent
4 weeks in anticipation of the nativity, beginning the Sunday nearest to November 30
Remembrance of the nativity, beginning December 25 until the Sunday after January 6
Ordinary Time after Epiphany
4-8 weeks
Ordinary Time after Pentecost
40 days (excluding Sundays) in anticipation of the resurrection, beginning on Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday
50-day celebration of the resurrection, concluding on Pentecost Sunday
6 months
Our focus in this article are the natural and liturgical seasons. Sometimes, the rhythms of Earth align with the story of God. Take Advent with the dormancy of winter and Easter with the vibrancy of spring; both kinds of seasons are externallyimposing, and they are communally-uniting. However, the liturgical calendar does more than the Gregorian calendar. It imposes the narrative of God and unites the entirety of the world (beyond the impositions of natural seasons). One is based on the seasons, the other is based on a Person. That is, the liturgical calendar is based on the story of God and communicates the patterns of Man. For instance, in Lent, we traditionally fast for 40 days because Christ fasted for 40 days.
In fact, the Julian calendar was revised into the Gregorian calendar to keep the natural and liturgical seasons in line. It was important for Christians that Easter would continue to occur during the Spring Equinox, since Spring marks vitality and rebirth after the long and cold winter. Let winter be the season of repentance (Lent) and spring be the season of resurrection (Easter). While not all countries experience the four natural seasons, all countries experience the major liturgical seasons.
My experience of transitioning from living in Asia to America also mirrors my transition towards living under this liturgical calendar.
In the natural seasons, I faced another new
problem: seasonal depression is imposed on us yet it unites us communally like never before. Never in my life had I seen as many people wear many layers of clothing nor invite me over for tea. But I also encountered new joys: watching snowfall for the first time and seeing tens of snow sculptures on campus. The season is externally-imposing and communally-uniting in that it creates a 2-3 month-long culture without which we wouldn’t flourish nor even survive.
St. Augustine... maintains that there are two cities: the City of God and the City of Man.
The same is true with the liturgical seasons: there are months-long traditions that form the Church’s communal culture that imposes spiritual narratives, disciplines, and mindsets that guide Christian flourishing.
A church without the liturgical calendar would be unthinkable in the 2000 years of church history. Imagine if we have no Christmas, Good Friday, nor Easter. And take Lent, the season of fasting, increased prayer and alms-giving, marked by repentance— in the Orthodox Tradition, the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim is recited in every weeknight liturgy, when everyone in the parish or church would prostrate to the ground multiple times. This, by far, has been the favorite sanctifying prayer of many Orthodox Christians. [3] In the Western Tradition
(Catholic, Anglican, and the like), parishioners or churchgoers would go around and contemplate on the Stations of the Cross on Fridays, following 14 events in the Passion, [4] which could take up to 45 minutes of meditating on Christ carrying His cross. Hearts become heavy, and examination of conscience becomes natural and universal.
Following the season of repentance is the season of resurrection. At Redeemer Church in La Mirada, CA, I’ve never seen as many people sing and dance for joy after a long fasting season of Lent during Easter Sunday. As I write this article, today was the first day I sat outside for more than 15 minutes this Spring semester, after numerous days of snowstorm in the past two months. I’m awaiting the joy of spring, and Lent is the time we’re awaiting the joy of resurrection.
As Lauren Winner wrote in the Foreword of Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, “I want the Christian story to shape everything I do, even how I reckon time,” as there are many competing stories of what should be most important to us at any given time. This is difficult to do, as “our surrounding society... tells us that the opening day of baseball season, not Easter, is the most important day of spring.” (Or perhaps the soccer season, in my case.) Further, the liturgical calendar or “Christian year consists of more than a sequence of holy days; it contains, in fact, whole seasons of spiritual meaning.” [5]
James K.A. Smith encourages us not to live in a Nowhen Christianity that maintains that “history is profane” and only “eternity is holy,” as this “nullifies history as an arena of God’s action.” God is a God of time and eternity. We cannot escape temporality, and eternity begins today as the seasons calibrate us to inhabit redeemed time.
Redeemed time is sanctified time—infused with meaning derived from God’s actions in the past and God’s promises for the future. And though we are temporal creatures, we are also eternal creatures, by which we already entered eternal life, albeit still distracted by the temporal concerns unavoidable in life.
In this redeemed time, Advent becomes the first day of the year in the liturgical calendar, where we wait for the nativity or the birth of Christ. This makes the possibility to inhabit the story of Christ and reorient ourselves in such a way that what we’re immersed into—among the overlapping calendars (the first semester in the academic calendar, the beginning of autumn in the Gregorian calendar, etc.)—the events in the life of Christ. God’s story becomes the context in which we live out our story. We live in time as storied beings.
While the natural calendar is based on the Cosmos, the liturgical calendar is based on the Logos.
While the natural calendar is based on the Cosmos, the liturgical calendar is based on the Logos. That is, it is based on the incarnate Logos or eternal Word of God (who is at the same time God Himself) who entered time; it is based on a divine Person. That Person lived in history or dwelt on earth, and our liturgical calendar revolves around the historical events of His life: the virgin birth in Christmas, His baptism in Epiphany, His fasting in Lent, His death and resurrection in Easter. We continue to remember and celebrate these events in the life of Christ, which are arguably the most important events in human and cosmic history, as they pertain to the salvation of all humanity and the cosmos.
In the book description of Alexander Schmemann’s Celebration of Faith II: The Church Year, it is written:
There is no human society without celebrations, holidays, and feasts. “The feast is part of man’s inescapable rhythm of work and rest,” observes Fr Schmemann. But beyond the need to rest from work, the development of celebrations in human culture has much deeper root in man’s absolutely irrepressible need, not just for rest, but for joy, for meaning that we find the true source of celebration and its tenacity in human society. Feasts, in every culture, have become the repository and expression of a society’s goals, ambitions, and worldview. As Fr. Schmemann writes, “Tell me what you celebrate, and I will tell you who you are.”
Christianity is also best understood through its celebrations rather than through abstract dogmatic and theological formulas. [7]
Even if it’s summer all year in Indonesia, it’s either Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, or Ordinary Time in Indonesia—and around the world for the Christian. We experience the embodiment of the Indonesian motto: Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, or Unity in Diversity.
All over the world, people will sing “Joy to the World” on the same day. Joy was born in a lonely manger. Such a story is externally imposing and communally uniting. Joy has come, whether you feel it or not—though Advent would recalibrate our emotions towards Joy. Joy comes to those who are in despair, Joy comes for the life of the world. You might’ve heard that Christ is “the reason for the season”—He is indeed the reason for all the liturgical seasons, the entire liturgical calendar. So, our story becomes submerged and participates in His Story. His life becomes our life. His death becomes our death. And His resurrection becomes our resurrection... Unto the ages of ages.
1. Okakura Kakuzo. The Book of Tea. 1906.
2. Augustine. The City of God. 426 AD.
3. O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power, and idle talk. (Prostrate)
But give to me Thy servant
A spirit of soberness, humility, patience, and love. (Prostrate)
O Lord and King, grant me to see My own faults and not to condemn my brother: For blessed art Thou to the ages of ages. Amen. (Prostrate)
4. The Passion, which comes from the Latin “to suffer,” is the short time period leading up to the death and burial of Christ, which consisted of His agony, trial, flagellation, carrying the cross, etc.
5. Bobby Gross. Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God. 2009.
6. James K. A. Smith. How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now. 2022.
7. Alexander Schmemann. Celebration of Faith, Vol. 2: The Church Year. 2012.
Gavin Susantio (YDS ‘25) concentrates in Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology. In his free time, you can find him reading Fyodor Dostoevsky, sipping quality matcha, or @CapturingYale.
The liturgical clock, covering one entire liturgical season, created by Phillip Aijian.
his website
the annotated version: phillipaijian.com
The Language of the Eternal
There are moments in life when it feels as though God is writing me a letter. Now, I don’t mean to imply some exaggerated heavenly communication or that God wires the overburdened secretary inhabiting the upper middle part of my brainstem to instruct me to refrain from eating the suspicious-looking oatmeal for breakfast. I mean that there are times and places where it seems messages are opportunely placed or people strategically encountered to provide me with necessary help, direction, or reassurance in my moments of extreme need and distress. Letters written in the mouths of other people and signed with God’s signature.
Communication with God, understanding the language of the eternal, is central to the Christian life. Yet, that very phrase poses a profound quandary: language is necessarily and inseparably tied to time while the eternal, God, is necessarily a representation of timelessness. We humans are temporally bounded beings called, as the Christian life denotes, to be in communication with a sempiternal God who is beyond time (Jeremiah 33:3 – “Call to me and I will answer you”). Christians at least (I’d claim all humans, but it is irrelevant to this piece) also seem to have an innate longing for the eternal, something infinite and outside of the wiles of time.
Why would God make us time-bound? Does this not hinder our ability to comprehend Him and limit our ability to communicate with Him?
Let’s consider this through the lens of language.
Language evinces the human reality that is time. Starting with basic things like verb tense and aspect, human language is characterized by particular linguistic conventions meant solely to convey sequential occurrence. And these conventions are not simply helpful by-products of language acquisition. We discuss what happened yesterday, not because it’s helpful when talking to friends, but because we are incapable of doing otherwise. It is impossible for us to separate the sequential nature of events from our communication with others and even with ourselves. Even in peculiar tongues like the Amondawa language, whose speakers reside in the Amazonian rainforests of Brazil, that have no words to discuss time as a concrete subject or the passage of time, the speakers still understand the world ‘in time,’ sequentially.
Tori Cook
According to a BBC article discussing a study done on the language, “The study, in Language and Cognition, shows that while the Amondawa recognize events as occurring in time, it does not exist as a separate concept.” [1] Time is a feature of reality and is therefore inseparable from communication.
This becomes important when addressing the human relationship with God. The Bible instructs that “whatever you ask the Father in [Jesus’] name He will give you” (John 16:23). Christians are told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), which, when coupled with Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 6 (the Our Father), must at least not exclude linguistic prayer. This means that, as the general practice, speaking to God occurs in a sequence: one word follows another and the words are sequentially situated thanks to tense, aspect, and other temporal signifiers. God, however, is not temporal. He is not listening to words in a sequence, and He is not bound by a forward, sequential kind of motion. Yet, this is impossible to understand as time is a reality of our condition, a framework we use to view the world, not a thing in the world that we can view. This means that humans are unable to understand how exactly God communicates with and understands us. Yet, the Christian psyche still longs for the eternal.
God, however, is not temporal. He is not listening to words in a sequence, and He is not bound by a forward, sequential kind of motion.
Does our lack of understanding not make it difficult to be drawn into relationship with God? Human relationships are fostered by communication in time, which is fundamentally different than a human’s relationship with God. To truly commune with God, the Christian would have to build a relationship for which there is no parallel example, pattern, or time-liberating capacity.
This problem is intensified when we realize that it is our language that may shape our understanding of time. For
speakers conceptualize time in terms of distance. We see time as a line moving from left to right and consider our days long or short. In contrast, Spanish speakers conceptualize time in terms of volume, thinking of days as being full rather than long. A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, General proposes that this does literally affect our conceptions of the passage of time. [2] Because time is a part of the way we experience the world rather than an abstract, comprehendible reality, our conceptions of time are crafted by the medium of our communication and thought—language.
Not only are we communicating with a being who is not bound by our sequential framework, but our linguistic tradition binds us even further into a particular way of viewing the world in time, of conceptualizing life, days, and how God views them as well.
Yet, regardless of our situation in time or our personal linguistic tradition, Christians are called to communion with God.
Perhaps the more important question then is not whether our communication with God is hindered by existing in time, but what benefit is gained from being temporal beings simultaneously called to commune with the one sempiternal God?
The easiest point of departure for this question is the Bible. Psalm 90:12 implores God to “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” It’s interesting that being cognizant of the time is supposed to lead us towards wisdom. Why? Recognizing that we are bound by a beginning and an end perhaps causes us to place greater value on the space between those moments, our lives. This isn’t so strange. It’s modeled in the way we speak. The Guugu Yimithirr language, for example, has no words for left, right, front, or back. Its speakers therefore think of someone “standing east of the house” rather than in front of the house as English speakers would. [3] The words we use to describe things shape our thoughts about things themselves. And the way we think
about things influences our actions. It makes sense that thinking of our limited time would cause us to be wiser about spending that time.
Recognizing that we are bound by a beginning and an end perhaps causes us to place greater value on the space between those moments, our lives.
But that is, to some extent, a cop-out answer. What does wiser actually mean? Sure, we may care more about the time we have, but what practical contingencies does the cognizance of time bring about? Could the knowledge of time not just as soon lead us to “at, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die?” [4] I’ll draw on language once more to answer this question. Just as the words we string together in a sentence become a useless string of sounds without the proper order, our lives suffer a similar fate. The aim of life, as with language, is meaning. And for the Christian, a meaningful life is one in which God takes the foremost place.
How can the Christian know what really is most important, how to assign God the premier place? One way is by noting what becomes most important in the face of significant danger. The approach of the ultimate danger, death, often reveals interesting priorities: forgiveness, reconciliation, and spending time with loved ones. Time, therefore, has a peculiar way of showing us the importance of being in right relationship with those around us (through reconciliation, forgiveness, etc.) and inspiring us to develop deeper relationships with our fellow men. This aligns with the Bible’s first and second great commandments: to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. [5] Time is thus shown to foster wisdom by causing the Christian to more strongly seek meaning by placing God and His commands (to love God and others) at the center of our lives.
Yet it would be dismissive to say that time always fosters wisdom. Time also holds one particular danger I fear many on Yale’s campus are compelled towards: the grind mentality. Rather than “eat, drink, and be merry,” the other logos
extreme is doing so much work that it becomes equally meaningless, that the obsession with being busy overruns other important parts of our lives. This includes the overthinker’s tendency to worry about making decisions and therefore doing everything so that they are not forced to choose, because heaven forbid they make the wrong choice. I’ve done this more times than I’d like to admit. By allocating all of one’s bandwidth to accomplishing as many tasks and participating in as many groups as possible, one can find themselves with very few meaningful engagements, no emotional bandwidth to devote to important relationships, or a few fulfilling activities that are so overwhelmed by sheer busyness that they lose their enjoyable qualities. It’s a horrifyingly easy trap to fall into.
The Bible cautions against overworking due to this human inclination. Yet this doesn’t diminish the effectiveness of time in providing a universally recognized impetus for the doing of important, meaningful things. Moments of severe danger, exhaustion, and misery are remarkably good at helping us to note what is most important and helps us sort out our priorities. For the Christian, this is called a reordering of our life towards God. It also perhaps informs 2 Corinthians 4:7: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” Part of our suffering may be to remind us to choose God and what He prescribes for our lives, such that we are able to participate in His timeless and eternal glory.
I suppose it is the moments that remind me of mortality that make me feel like God is writing me a letter, the moments when I am suddenly and acutely aware of my finitude and human experience. These moments are like messages from God, reminding me to seek Him, to love Him, and to appreciate Him through the people and things around me as I have only this allotment of time while He waits for me in eternity.
1. Jason Palmer. “Amondawa tribe lacks abstract idea of time, study says.” May 20, 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/scienceenvironment-13452711.
2. Emanuel Bylund and Panos Athanasopoulos. “The Whorfian time warp: Representing duration through the language hourglass.” April 27, 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/28447839/.
3. Betty Birner. “Does the Language I Speak Influence the Way I Think?” 1999. https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/doeslanguage-i-speak-influence-way-i-think.
4. Ecclesiastes 8:15 and Isaiah 22:13.
5. Matthew 22:36-40.
Tori Cook (JE ‘27) studies Comparative Literature. When she isn’t writing or debating Christian theology, you can find her curled up with her latest book, diving headfirst into Wikipedia rabbit holes, or on the hunt to expand her gnome collection.
On the Topic of Divine Hiddenness
David Woods
There are certain things that are simply unavoidable when you grow up in the middle of nowhere, and for as much as might you want to try and act like they aren’t a part of your identity when you move away, you’ll find that you simply can’t. Take me, for instance. I still find myself captivated by the scent of freshly cut grass that seems to waft through the air on some random spring days when the maintenance crew cuts stripes on the lawn on Old Campus.
Of course, I know as well as you might that the smells that drift off of the manicured turf don’t quite compare to Kentucky Bluegrass and Rye; they simply aren’t genuine in the same way that what I am familiar with would be, but I find comfort in the essence nonetheless. In fact, the same thing could be said for the shudders of warmth that race through my body at the most unpredictable times: perhaps when I’m strolling down Broadway and catch a glimpse of country music radiating from a nearby car’s radio or when I look up at the sky and am amazed to be able to see the stars through the light pollution of the city.
But I’m not blind. I know that I’m at least sixteen hours away (by car) from my humble home in Kentucky at any given time (trust me, I’ve driven the route more than enough times), I know that any semblance of the life that I used to have, of the easygoing days spent sauntering through meadows of native grasses without a care in the world, is packed away as tightly as the philosophy books in my backpack, and I know that I made the decisions that led me away from those beginnings, that it was my choice to pursue something different. But that recognition doesn’t stop me from searching, from looking for glimpses of what used to be life-giving (in a sense) and appreciating them for all that they’re worth. In fact, it’s human nature to seek generative value in this way, especially in situations that manifest such dynamic differences, like mine. Yet, that idea, the weight I put on these tastes of home, got me thinking: do these same translative experiences apply to God?
When I first got to college, and I found myself immersed in Christian community, I felt no need to question the force of His will and direction over my life. It seemed that He had put me right where I needed to be, in a space that is open to the kind of exploration my heart desired to engage in to try and discern both who He was and who He is in my life right now. And indeed, for a while, this remained the case. I found myself diving ever-deeper into trying to understand what it meant to live a Christ-centered life, and I truly relished every moment that I was able to connect with Him. It was like I was chasing a perpetual cycle of thin spaces, where the boundaries between Heaven and Earth seem more permeable and God seems omnipresent in a way that my inattentive nature would not have allowed for previously.
And, after a while, I began to wonder if these feelings were real, if God had truly made Himself known to me in a way that was undeniable, or
if I was simply juxtaposing figments of my past with my time at Yale. That is, in much the same manner that I wasn’t fooled by the turf on Old Campus or the country music on Broadway, I began to wonder if I was fooling myself with God, if I was artificially making reasons to believe to augment some gilded sense of reassurance and connection with the ubiquity of religion in my rural upbringings and the longing I felt for some air of familiarity (psychologists might call this a confirmation bias). But, the more I dove into scripture, the more uncertain I became about the presence of God, specifically why He chooses to remain hidden from the masses in a way that leads to ambiguity over His existence.
Romans 1:20 tells us that:
Ever since the creation of the world His eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made. So they are without excuse.
And, truth be told, this seems like quite a lofty statement. If it is the case that we are without excuse to not know God, then it must also be the case that God’s existence is indisputable, but is this phenomenon really observable within the finitude of our world?
It can be a difficult thing, both for the Christian and the atheist, to wrestle with the idea that God exists. And, for as much as we like to believe, as Christians, that knowing God is something that’s done internally through the sorts of divine revelation that people like Saint Thomas Aquinas spoke of centuries ago, we cannot deny the curiosity that might lead us to think differently.
Even the most steadfast Christian, one who is not motivated to question their faith in the same way that an intellectual would, has to acknowledge that at some point, they wished that they had more concrete evidence for the existence of God,
even if they do so simply out of a desire to know how to honor Him and His creation better. It is human nature to seek understanding and to be explorative, and we shouldn’t hide from that desire.
And so, the question remains: where is God, and why does He not make Himself more known to us? Why is it the case that I can’t have a conversation with God in the same way that I might call up one of my friends just to chat about life? And why must so many people in the world reject His teachings through Christ? Are they really all living life with the intentionality to specifically ignore God?
The rationale I laid out in the preceding paragraphs speaks to a philosophical question called the problem of divine hiddenness, which seems to stand in major contention with so many of the things that we, as Christians, come to know when we decide to let God enter our hearts and to live lives centered on the Gospel and the example of Christ. To put it bluntly, if God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient, then why is it the case that anyone in His kingdom does not know,
for sure, that He is pursuing us with a fervent love that is otherwise inescapable? Indeed, as the Lord says in Ezekiel 34:11, “I myself will search for my sheep.”
God is all-good, so why wouldn’t He want the best for those individuals that make up this earth? He is all-loving, so why doesn’t He desire deeply to make Himself known to those who love Him? He is all-powerful, so why doesn’t it seem like He has the ability to interact with us on our plane of existence? Above all, He is all-knowing, so can’t He see the contents of our hearts and our minds and recognize how much more meaningful and powerful our walks with Jesus would be, and how much more impactful our lives would be if only we could say for sure that He exists?
Aside from these obvious concerns, it actually appears that the atheist has a lot of weight in the argument from divine hiddenness, for it has not always been the case that God has been so out-of-touch (in a literal sense we could say) with this world. There are numerous examples of God using His powers to make Himself known to people, just like us, independent of their
religious status, throughout the stories of the Bible. And indeed, it is this disparity between how things used to be, taking Biblical stories into account, with how things are now, that leads many to the conclusion that God is either dead or simply does not exist.
Take, for instance, the transfiguration that Moses and Elijah witness in the New Testament, [1] or really any story that the Bible tells about the life of Jesus. Barring the patent explanation that Jesus gave His life on the cross for us, that He is responsible for our salvation, and that He is going to return to the earth and mark the end of the world as we know it (according to Revelation), we still have reason to believe that there should be a more empirical sort of evidence to the existence of God.
The matter at hand is further complicated by the existence of miracles. Miracles have, and will always be, things of pure mysticism. They are defined internally by the fact that they violate the laws of nature because there are no physical explanations for their occurrence. This is a point that can be debated, as some choose to perceive miracles as occurring in
different environments and for different reasons (or perhaps even involving different amounts of divine intervention), but, for the sake of this article, we shall assume that miracles are events that are supernatural.
Much the same argument against the existence of God— an argument, in turn, that complicates the hiddenness of God—can be made through miracles with very similar reasoning. In the Gospels, we
a glaring question: where is He? And, if He does exist, is now not as good of a time as any to make Himself known, to save the masses from oppression, to empower His followers to fight for what is just, and to establish order in a world that’s slipped into an uncontested state of apathy?
see Jesus and His followers being able to perform miracles like healing the blind, curing leprosy, or parting the waters of a sea. But what about today? With the rise of inequality and the derision of justice—take, for example, the conflicts in Gaza, Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Yemen—the world is no less in need of the incontestable grace of God, yet we’re often left with
While it might be easy for Christians to answer some of the conflicts that I raised already with optimistic visions of the good, of the ways that they are able to rest their trust in God and know that He is present even when He can’t be seen, it is not so easy for a non-believer to think through the same dissensions. And so, much of the rest of this article shall focus on that perspective, the one of the non-believer, because it is, in my opinion, just as important.
J.L. Schellenberg has perhaps the strongest argument for divine hiddenness, one that bolsters the position of the atheist, and it can be formulated as follows: If we assume that God is a perfect person insofar as He an ultimate being, then it is the case that He would also be perfect in the possession of
the properties associated with persons, including (but not limited to) power, knowledge, creativity, and love. As such, it is then necessary to categorize nonbelievers into two main camps: the reasonable nonbelievers and the inculpable non-believers. The reasonable non-believers would be people who are indeed hostile towards religion, or those who take intentional steps to reject the will of God, whereas the inculpable—or nonresistant—non-believers are those who place no ill-will on religion, but who still have not had the light of faith revealed to them.
The argument continues that necessarily, God (as the ultimate, loving, and perfect being) would ensure that there are no non-resistant nonbelievers, which provides for the assertion that “…what a loving God has to reason to do is provide us with evidence sufficient for belief.” For, if God did not make Himself known, then there would be people—like you or I—that live their lives unable to reach a sense of ultimate fulfillment, trudging on, instead, through ignorance and the fear of damnation because God hides. And, while the most common response to this problem is to bring in free will and
postulate that God cannot exist cohesively as an indisputable presence without violating the ability that we have, as agents, to make moral decisions, an omnipotent God would make it the case that “moral freedom…need not be infringed upon in order for God to be disclosed in a relevant sense.” [2]
So, where does this argument leave us? For me, it seems that the problem of divine hiddenness begs a much more relevant question than “where is God?” in a way that my prior self, the one who, unsure of whether he could trust his senses and be comforted by God’s presence, would not have known to ask. That is, what do we seek in searching for God?
1 John 4:6 tells us that “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God,” which seems to stipulate that it is out of love and the earnest desire to know God that He makes Himself known to us. We do not choose to worship a God who forces us to believe in His supremacy and ultimate goodness. To argue that such a reality would be preferable might, in fact, demarcate and stunt the potential relationships we could ever have with God. God is the author of our fortunes, the only One who knows the content of our hearts and from whom we cannot hide, but there is something truly beautiful, and perhaps even unfathomable, about the way in which we come to know God on our own accord.
In open-ended terms, God is not the professor that seems to stifle your creativity, trying to make sure that you fit into the mold of contemporary academic society by handing you back critique after critique that causes you to upend your thought processes and spiral into a state of doubt and dread. He is much more like the academic advisor, the one with whom you’ve spent countless nights in the backroom at The Graduate; the one who, better than anyone else imaginable, can see your dreams and passions and know that, regardless of what kind of garbage seems to be on the pages of your thesis as it stands, you will accomplish the things that you set out to do, even if that involves stumbling along the way.
There
is something
truly beautiful, and perhaps even unfathomable, about the way in which we come to know God on our own accord.
And from this idea, an important conclusion emerges, one that deals in belief. That is, God’s (or our academic advisor’s, professor’s, etc.) desire as to why we believe in Him seems to be more important than the fact that we believe in Him because God is a redeemer. God is not fixated on conformity or veracity, as the professor might be. God is willing to give you some room to breathe, to escape the insufferable weight of expectation, much like the kind-hearted
academic advisor that genuinely believes in your potential, and this is where it becomes apparent that we cannot logically demand that God “unhide” Himself and at the same time retain our potential to grow:
The true God, morally impeccable, would always seek what is morally best for us, thereby giving us an opportunity to achieve, without coercion, God’s kind of moral goodness. God, in other words, would be a redeemer enabling us, through knowledge of God, to be rescued without coercion from our moral deficiencies and thereby to become morally like God. [3]
In other words, God cares not simply that we believe in His existence as a classical theist might; it is much more important that we believe in His existence and come to know and accept him as our Lord through our own experiences. Take, for example, the old adage “as you sow, so shall you reap.” There is no generative or constitutive beneficence to be found in demanding that God make Himself known, as it would, in fact, be a self-serving argument to make the case that divine hiddenness justifies disbelief in God. Indeed, providing proof of His existence would logically entail that God succumbs to our earthly concerns, thereby contradicting His goals of allowing us a path to sanctification in Him through the removal of our selfish and prideful tendencies. Thus, “…we truly come to know God only if we acknowledge our unworthiness of knowing God.” [4]
And so, while it might not be the case that I will be able tell people stories of my relationship with God based on concrete evidence that denies His hiddenness (take, for instance the phone call prayer mentioned earlier), I can, just like everyone else, admit to myself that I don’t need that kind of reassurance in my life. To concede limitations is to be human, and to let God work without demanding His presence is to be humble. Faith grows from a place of uncertainty and a lack of understanding, and besides it’s surprisingly liberating to live in a world not centered on the self.
1. Matthew 7:1-13.
2. J. L. Schellenberg. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. 2006.
3. Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser, eds. Divine Hiddenness: New Essays. 2001.
4. Ibid.
David Woods (TD ‘26) is majoring in Environmental Studies and Philosophy. You can often find David enganging in deep conversation while exploring new campus spaces or defending TD as the best residential college.
The Speed of Love
How fast does God move?
Sound moves at 767 miles per hour, while light moves at 670 million miles per hour. Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata is usually played at 70 beats per minute, while Charlie Parker’s Anthropology clocks in at a blistering 304. The cheetah routinely runs over 70 miles per hour, while the peregrine falcon has broken 240 in a dive. My mom averages about 90 on the highway, while my dad is a less frightening 72. But scientists have never managed to measure God’s speed.
Or have they?
In his 1979 book The Three Mile an Hour God, Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama notes the fact that Jesus Christ walked at three miles per hour during His time on earth. Jesus never set foot in an airplane, car, or motorboat; He never even rode a horse or chariot. The fastest He traveled was in a creaking rowboat or on a shambling donkey. For the vast majority of His life, Jesus walked. And like all humans, Jesus averaged three miles per hour. Even for His time, Jesus seems to have been a slow and meandering walker. In Mark 5, the synagogue leader Jairus runs to Jesus, sweating and panting, and implores Him to heal his daughter, who is near death. But Jesus, not seeming to sense the urgency of the situation, gradually follows Jairus to his home, which is surrounded by an unruly crowd that blocks his steps at every turn.
Jack Batten
When they are halfway from the house, Jesus comes to a sudden stop, and the entire crowd grinds to a halt. His disciples try to urge their rabbi along, while Jairus is left counting down his daughter’s final minutes. But Jesus has noticed a chronically ill woman in the crowd and takes the time to heal her even as the messengers come running with news that Jairus’s daughter has died. Then, Jesus takes His time walking to the dead girl’s bedside, where He dismisses the mourners, takes her hand, and tells her to get up. The dead girl stretches, yawns, and opens her eyes, the clock of her life rewound, having received the gift of time from the immortal God.
Jesus is never in a rush. Jesus walks at three miles an hour, and He never hesitates to stop along the way. He takes His time.
There is lots of walking at Yale, but very little of it is slow and leisurely. There is more rushing from HQ to Science Hill or from the Franklin dining hall to WLH than there is taking in the architecture or strolling with a friend. Meals are cut short when you have to rush off to a seminar on the emperor Claudius, and showers are like running through a sprinkler when there is a chemistry p-set to finish. We hurry up the career ladder, dashing from internship to graduate school to corporate job as quickly as the job market will allow. Time is money, and we’re broke in both currencies. Yale is a fast-moving place.
Scottish theologian John Swinton draws a connection between God’s pace and God’s love. “In a culture of speed,” he writes, “we forget that love takes time, and that love is slow.” Jesus took time to get to know people that no one else wanted to look at, never mind become friends with. He would go far out of His way to visit a backwater village.
One of the groups often left behind by this “culture of speed” is people with disabilities, as Swinton notes. People with dementia, Down Syndrome, or profound disabilities lack the productivity, savvy, and mobility so valued in the Ivy League. Many people with disabilities move at a slower pace, physically and intellectually.
“To be with people living with dementia,” writes Swinton, “you need to slow down and take time for those things that the world considers to be trivial. When you do this, you will be surprised—and probably amazed—at what you discover, as you encounter people in the slowness of God’s love.”
In John 4, Jesus stops by a well and lingers there for a whole morning while His disciples hurry along to a nearby city. He sits on the edge of the well all morning until a woman comes along. Jesus asks for a drink from the well, and they have a long conversation. He never rushes her, never says “well, I should probably be going,” even though lunchtime has come and gone and He never did get that drink.
A speedy love is no love at all. We know that shotgun marriages soon fall apart, but we shoot off shotgun conversations, shotgun emails, shotgun calls home. We lose patience with the confused-looking guy in our biology discussion section until he eventually gives up asking questions. We talk over the beginner playing on the common room piano until he leaves so the real pianists can take over. We sneer at the freshman from North Dakota who doesn’t know what “consulting” is, or laugh at our awkward, balding history TF. We surround ourselves with youthful people, attractive people, talented and ambitious people. We go months without seeing anyone under the age of eighteen, or anyone over the age of thirty-five who isn’t a professor. We rarely interact with anyone who has a disability; many of us would struggle to name friends who have disabilities.
Ragtime composer Scott Joplin’s biggest regret was that performers always darted through his pieces at warp speed. When I played his 1908 piece Pine Apple Rag a few years ago, I noticed a box in the top left corner that said in bold font: NOTE: Do not play this piece fast. Composer. Joplin felt that performers were neglecting the true artistic value of his music by making a performance an opportunity to show off their speed. In the same way, we devalue our relationships when we rush through them, treating those around us as distractions on the way to something bigger and better.
So how do we slow down our breakneck pace? How do we rediscover a slow, gentle love?
Hitting the brakes on the speed of our love requires a long look at Love himself. Christ’s love is slow and steady. Because an eternal God slowed down and took the time to walk beside us, to love us, to die for us, we can slow down and better love God and other people.
The infinite God became bound by time for our salvation. Christ staggered up Calvary under the weight of His cross for our reconciliation. The Creator left His throne and walked along muddy footpaths so that we could join Him in the eternal dance. Far too often we neglect this reality. The prospect of the career, the relationship, the grade we are striving for often overtakes the glorious reality of what Christ has done for us. And the pressure—the ticking of the clock, the impending deadlines—weighs on our mind constantly. But what if we let the reality of an eternity of glory, of a slow and steady love, relieve the pressure of these burdensome countdowns?
Consider the lilies, Jesus said: they stay rooted in the same patch of soil and still God provides everything they need. Consider the little girl with Down Syndrome: she is neither productive nor useful in the eyes of the world, but God’s glory shines through her nevertheless. Consider the elderly: their movement is constrained by arthritic joints and bad backs, but their wisdom and perseverance are beautiful in the eyes of their Creator.
Consider God’s love for you. The story of Love incarnate is a long, slow narrative, spanning from “let there be light” to the final trumpet’s blast. Like a knight from Arthurian legend, God trudged through deserts, parted seas, fought the forces of evil, was betrayed, and gave His own life to win back His beloved.
God has taken His time in this mission—it has been millennia since the voice on Sinai, the songs of David, the angels outside the empty tomb. It may be millennia more before the skies split open and heaven comes roaring down to earth. But once Love takes hold of His beloved, only eternity itself will be long enough to contain the span of His love.
In his poem “On meeting Time,” seventeenthcentury English poet George Herbert writes of an encounter between himself and Time. Time expects Herbert to flee in terror from his scythe and frightening features, but Herbert cheerfully explains to the hooded figure how Christ’s coming has dulled Time’s edge:
And in [Christ’s] coming thou art blessed, For where thou only were before An executioner at best; Thou art a gardener now, and more, An usher to convey our souls Beyond the utmost stars and poles.
Time is no longer an executioner, but rather a gardener. His hatchet is a pair of pruning shears, his hearse a chariot to glory. Herbert concludes: “Of what strange length must that needs be, / Which even eternity excludes!” In Herbert’s theology, God’s love spills over the bounds of eternity. For time demands an end, and this will never do for God. Though Time’s ravages may rack us, in the end, Time is only the stage on which Love performs, the pen with which Love writes His story.
God’s love is time-bound but not timecontained. That is, God willingly loves us in the here and now, but unlike everything else we experience in time, His love has no expiration date, no half-life, no end. Love is not constrained by time. Love takes time.
The pace of our world now, more than ever, demands a slow and steady love. We need the one who is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Only when we are pierced by the slow and steady love of Love Himself can we gain the patience to love God and those around us.
1. Sarah McPherson. “Cheetah Guide.” March 29, 2022. https:// www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/mammal-cheetahguide-facts.
2. Mike Dilger. “Peregrine Falcon Guide.” May 17, 2023. https:// www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/peregrine-falcon-facts.
3. Kosuke Koyama. The Three Mile an Hour God. 1979.
4. John Swinton. “God walks at three miles an hour.” April 5, 2019. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/5-april/comment/ opinion/god-walks-at-three-miles-an-hour.
5. Ibid.
6. George Herbert. The Temple. 1633.
7. Ibid.
Jack Batten (BF ‘27) studies Classics and the Russian Language. In his free time, Jack likes to read Napoleonic history, officiate flag football, and build wooden boats.
Moving Beyond the Clock
Living Freely in a World Consumed by Hurry
There are 60 seconds in each minute, 60 minutes in each hour, 24 hours in each day, 7 days in each week, 52 weeks in each year, and an undefined number of years in all of creation’s existence. Long before any of us even understood how to count time, life has worked this way. Over the years, however, humans have increasingly turned to technology as a means of controlling the patterns of time, especially as it has become more essential to our functioning.
There was a point in history when people told time according to the rising and setting of the sun and the movement of the stars. Today, however, many of us track it on our wrists and carry it in our pockets. From phone alarms to monstrously crowded GCals that allow us to add, extend, and delete slots as we see fit, we have built a habit of living within time and orienting our lives around wrangling it.
On college campuses, where time is seen as an especially scarce commodity, our hyper-fixation on controlling it is even more evident. Although classes have almost entirely returned to in-person instruction after COVID-19, rather than sitting through a scheduled 75-minute lecture, many students continue to opt for recordings that allow them to watch lessons at their preferred time and speed. Indeed, it is even becoming too difficult for some students to find time to take notes or complete readings, opting instead to have AI software like ChatGPT analyze texts or concepts and break them down into bulleted lists that can be digested at a fraction of the speed as can their assigned course material.
Each of these time manipulation methods foment our desire to maintain control and to reject, or even despise, patience and contentment. Yet, despite our common tendency to forget how little control we have over time, we have all entered into a world with pre-existing temporal constraints. In the same way that we do not control the rising of the sun or the blooming of spring’s flowers, we cannot control when we are born, when we die, or even—to an extent—how the in-between plays out. No matter how in control we may feel, in reality, we cannot speed time up or slow it down; but, does that mean that we are trapped within it, and, if so, how should we act in light of this realization?
Yoska Guta
Christianity posits that God has not only made time as a part of Creation but that He has also provided a tangible, living example of how humans ought to operate within it. The Gospel narratives found within the New Testament recount the life and ministry works of Jesus, the Son of God, who entered creation in human form with a crucial purpose: reconciling a broken and sinful people to Himself through self-sacrifice. Jesus’ earthly life, Gospel ministry, and eternal promise are all littered with implications for how humans should relate to and understand time.
Within the Christian faith, Jesus is not merely a revered figure but is understood to be God Himself—the One through whom all things in creation were made. Therefore, it is of immense significance that the Creator of Heaven and Earth would willfully choose to leave His throne of glory and limitless power to be made subject to His own creation, particularly through time. In the fullness of His humanity, Christ experienced what it meant to grow up as a child—to obey His parents and undergo all the Jewish coming-of-age rites, despite knowing what great power He possessed as God. He submitted in complete humility and patience to the human experience for the sake of a greater purpose.
In the fullness of His humanity, Christ experienced what it meant to grow up as a child.
For those of us who are anxious about For those of us who are anxious about our future or who feel that our ambitions and career aspirations are not coming to pass quickly enough, Jesus challenges us. His purpose—living an earthly life to die
a painful death so that He could rise up and save all of humankind—is far greater than any of ours. Yet, as Philippians 2:6-8 tells us, He did not consider His equality with God something to be grasped; but, in humility, He took on the nature of a servant and was found in the likeness of human beings. Jesus did not use His divine nature to circumvent suffering or create a path of maximal convenience and efficiency, and neither should we.
In spite of always knowing what was ahead of Him, whether the pain of the cross or the glory that lay beyond it, Jesus patiently waited nearly 4,000 years before entering creation and nearly 33 more years before ultimately fulfilling His earthly purpose. Along the way, He frequently reminded those around Him, contrary to what many of us would say about ourselves, that His time was not yet. But when His time came, He faithfully endured the cross to the point of death, being buried for three days before His glorious moment of resurrection came to pass. In His patience and submission, Jesus directly opposes our instinct to speed life up or manipulate systems to our liking.
For all the control we believe we have over time, somehow, many of us are still unsatisfied with it. When it comes to school or all the years of professional training that might be ahead of us, time is not moving fast enough. Yet, when it comes to sleep or moments of leisure, it moves too quickly. We know we should not procrastinate, and yet many of us spend a considerable amount of our days regretting our misuse of time. Not to mention, for each of us, our time here on earth will also have a final limit in death—a limit we often try to evade but will eventually be confronted with.
In contrast to our uneasy and restless relationship with time, however, Christ both willfully surrendered to and freely lived within it. In John 11, Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus from Bethany informing Him that their brother Lazarus was sick and needed healing. Upon hearing this, Jesus intentionally decides to wait two extra days before visiting their family, telling His disciples: “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” [1] Upon His arrival, Jesus is met by the two sisters who both say to Him “Lord…if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” [2] Likewise, their Jewish relatives, upon seeing Jesus weep alongside the sisters over Lazarus, ask “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” [3]
Jesus’ delay led those around Him to question His intentions and abilities. It seemed, by human standards, illogical that Jesus would purposefully wait for Lazarus to die before coming to heal him. Failing to see the greater heavenly purpose, Lazarus’ relatives concluded that Jesus’ delay was evidence of His inability and insufficiency. Yet unbeknownst to them, Jesus chose this route to reveal His perfect sufficiency and ability.
us. Rather than being enslaved by the pressure to maximize our productivity in the consuming pursuit of success, we are called to slow down, to think about what part of ourselves we lose in coveting time, and to remember the example that Jesus set.
At the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus commissions His disciples to carry on His work by spreading the good news of the Gospel to the whole world. This responsibility to be the vehicle by which the early church would be established was a high calling. But rather than urging them to pack their belongings, split up the countries amongst themselves, and disperse to various regions, Jesus immediately follows this commission with a command to wait: “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
[4]
That is, although Jesus submitted Himself to the limitations of time as a human being, in His divinity, Christ still possessed power over time, so much so that even death did not have the final say in His presence. For those of us who are immensely attached to efficiency or deeply fearful of missing our big moment, Jesus’ decision to delay seems unthinkable. Yet, here too, Jesus challenges
For many of us, waiting for things that have set deadlines is hard enough, think of the release of college admissions decisions and the anxiety that we all felt for something that we knew was coming. But imagine if these dates and times were unknown. Imagine if there were no alumni or current students to inform us of the potential college experiences that await us at the end of the application season. For Jesus’ disciples, this was the kind of waiting they had—one that lacked both a precise end date and a detailed explanation of what was to come.
In this modern day and age, where technology and other means have given us a greater sense of control over our day, such a command to wait and remain would be very difficult. This call to indefinite waiting is the ultimate challenge to our attachment to time.
Today, this call to indefinite waiting is for the second coming of Christ. We know that He has gone to prepare a place for us in Heaven—a place He will bring us to at the end of time. But, “concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” [5] As those living on the other side of resurrection, we can trust that this promise of eternity is a sure thing. And yet, in the mystery of it all, we are also being called to an indefinite faith. But will the Son of Man find such faith on earth when He returns? Or will we, having minimized faith to a series of scheduled times and predictable moments, have grown weary and hopeless?
Although Jesus submitted Himself to the limitations of time as a human being, even death did not have the final say in His presence.
The desire to live a fulfilling and never-ending life, free of pain and grief, is a natural part of the human experience. After all, death is the antithesis to life. But the fulfillment we so desperately seek does not lie on the other side of a sped-up lecture or an ambitious career aspiration. Our relentless pursuit of maximal productivity and purpose is misinformed by our failure to recognize that there is an end to this thing called time. If we are not careful, continually feeding our insatiable desires for efficiency and immediate gratification—through developing more systems to eliminate the slow, prolonged, or mundane moments of life—will leave us ill-prepared for what awaits us at the end of time: an eternity where neither schedules nor deadlines nor customizable playback settings will mean anything to our existence.
In light of this, how then do we live in the present with an eternity in mind where time ceases to matter?
By directing our attention to Christ, who exemplified this way of life.
1. John 11:14-15.
2. John 11:21; 31.
3. John 11:37.
4. Luke 24:49.
5. Matthew 24:36.
Yoska Guta (TD ‘25) double majors in Mollecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) and Religious Studies. She loves talking about faith, theology, and Christian community.
Collecting the In-Between Moments
Emma Ventresca
As a college student, living in a city means lots of walking. Traversing campus from dorm room to class, from class to meals, from meals to activities, and from activities back to home base can become monotonous, exhausting, and time-consuming. If we walk 15,000 steps a day, this equates to about 142 city blocks. Assuming there are traffic lights at each intersection, that amounts to about an hour just spent waiting to cross the road. Indeed, we could have that 25th hour in the day if there were no cars to interfere with our dashing from place to place. These “inbetween” times of life can stack up.
On Yale’s campus, we often seek to get rid of these “in-between’’ moments at the micro level. After all, nixing them allows us to live efficiently and make more time for the activities we love. To some, this may look like pressing the snooze button to have a few extra minutes of quiet before sprinting to class. To others, it may look like the masterful multitasking of calling a parent while texting a friend while eating a boxed dinner while reviewing a problem set. I would be surprised to talk to someone at Yale who has not experienced this, but should we prize these moments as the pinnacle of time management?
Managing our time properly begins with embracing the “in-between” moments, sewing together the periods of monotony into a tapestry of active waiting. The theory that we can erase these “in-between” moments on the day-to-day micro level does not translate to the practicality of life on the macro level. It is impossible for humans to ax the intermediate periods that separate the big milestones of life like marriage or a job transition. From healing broken bones to having a child, waiting is built into our biology. The question is how individuals use the
time in the interim. For these larger life events, there is obviously a serious degree of preparation that constitutes active waiting. Parents must set up a nursery in expectation of a new child; college seniors wait to hear back from job interviews that could have life-changing results. But for smaller events, it can be difficult to understand how
this “active waiting” applies. Standing at a stoplight for thirty seconds will most likely not lead to a great revelation or transformative event. Nonetheless, weaving together the many small “in-between” moments of
life—possibly summing to more than an hour a day—can help orient our lives. In other words, stringing together a few moments of solitude, reflection, or gratitude can cultivate our souls. If we truly listen, it is in the quiet moments, regardless of how brief, that we find direction.
Imagine if we reframed efficiency as accomplishing all that which is good for the soul, not just all that which is good for success.
What does it mean to yield ourselves to the waiting periods? In a recent New York Times article, Melissa Kirsch presents rest as the key. In “How to Rest,” Kirsch presents the concept of the “lie-down.”
[1] A lie-down is a flexible kind of rest that could include a short nap, contemplative thoughts, or reading. There is great beauty in scheduling time for rest, acknowledging the frailty of the human body as it struggles against time’s inevitability. Most importantly, a “lie-down” is intentional, just as calling a grandparent or sketching could be as we wait in line to enter a dining hall. Taking time to retreat from the world can refresh the human
body and spirit, allowing it to reorient itself and enter back into life recharged.
While active waiting does imply consistent intentionality with our time, this does not equate to constant busyness. An action need not be efficient in the eyes of the world to be good or beautiful.
Imagine if we reframed efficiency as accomplishing all that which is good for the soul, not just all that which is good for success. Work and studies would take on a different tone, and time for friends and physical activity would be priceless. This kind of efficiency has a universal effect on the human body; that which is good for one part enriches the whole and creates a positive feedback loop.
In a world that adopts this definition of efficiency, acknowledgement of the natural beauty of the day or a quick prayer are more productive acts than responding to a work email at a thirty-second stoplight. When we choose to use time for the soul amidst the monotony of daily life, we choose something greater than ourselves. Resting in the small moments disposes us to ponder higher questions—the nature of happiness, beauty, goodness—that are so often trampled by busy calendars. The head-fake: we need not philosophize for hours on end to glean a few kernels of wisdom. Our daily commutes and the long lines at the checkout are the starting points for gratitude, hope, and renewal.
Efficiency that prioritizes that which is good for the soul transforms the mundane into the supernatural through a keen awareness of the importance of collecting small moments of active waiting. The trade-off should be simple; the couple of minutes we spend waiting for a friend in the dining hall can become a restorative time in our day if we opt to take a deep breath instead of scroll through the news.
When we see the “in-between” moments of our day as tools to get ahead of our busy schedules, we sometimes fail to pay attention to our interior lives. We find ourselves stretched too thin, choosing between accomplishing the most in the smallest amount of time and working toward revitalizing the entire human person— body, mind, and spirit. In the Gospels, Jesus does not “rush through” His interactions. He both shares meals with His disciples and retreats to prayer. He not only heals the physical ailments of the meek and lowly but also attends to their interior wounds. Jesus lives with the totality of the human person in mind, allowing Him to spend time in conversation with the disciples and fellowship with the outcasts.
Our days may always be busy, but pockets of “in-between” time can become bedrocks of peace. A day can seem full instead of long when we are intentional–understanding the necessity of order and discipline in our rest time. St. Paul, a Christian missionary in the first century A.D., writes in his letter to the Corinthians that “all things should be done decently and in order.” [2] Planning ahead versus
desiring to squeeze the most out of every second shifts our definition of efficiency. Rather than making a habit out of running into our 9ams after an all-nighter and two cups of coffee, maybe we can strive to order our lives such that we can walk into our Monday schedule refreshed, well-nourished, and ready to actively engage with the tasks before us. Our definition of efficiency should not seek to maximize utility; it should maximize meaning. We should strive to squeeze every drop out of the day, not through mindless multitasking and rushing to make ends meet but through making the “in-between” times more purposeful.
The glory of God is man fully alive.
Ascribing a greater significance to our “waiting” time each day works for our good as well as for the glory of God. In the Christian tradition, numerous men and women have provided examples of life lived to the fullest. Those who have lived exemplary lives are canonized as saints and regarded as sources of wisdom. St. Irenaeus of the early Church stated, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” [2] Being
“fully alive” does not look like packing quantity into a day for the sake of it, nor does it look like waiting for the next big thing. Mentally jumping from one big event to the next, cataloging our assignments and meetings, only embeds us deeper into the “rat race.” The “in-between” tasks of our days—working out, sharing a meal with a friend, calling family—that do not seem as “important” as an upcoming exam begin to take a backseat, and we slowly lose sight of the fullness of life. Our tunnel vision can steamroll our brief pauses in the day that should be dedicated to our health. We fail to seek the joys in daily life when we wait for one thing “to finally be over” since the next pops up shortly thereafter. Think about the previous example with the stoplights. With almost complete certainty, we know that the light will switch from red to green within a minute or two. But we can never quite pin down when our lives will dip into a lull or swing into action. Existence is not just about the big events on our calendars; it is about the fullness of the human experience. Being “fully alive” harkens back to Jesus’ own model of consistently embracing the totality of humanity—body, mind, spirit. logos 35
This does not mean that we cannot look forward to momentous occasions; it means that we do not allow them to define the source of our joy and hope. As a Christian, then, this fullness is intertwined with a relationship with the living God. We are to draw from the source of all goodness, which is Christ, in periods of waiting–whether they are short half-hour commutes or seasons of life where we are just trying to push from one thing to the next. As St. Augustine says, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you.” [3] Part of being fully alive—even in the downtime—is engaging with our innermost selves. Through prayer and reflection, we can find peace and security that endures through all seasons of life.
So how can we learn from the in-between times on the microscopic level when we face longer periods of waiting? Thirty seconds at a light may be just the right amount of time to take a deep breath, look up at the sky, and admire the sunset as I often do from the corner of Prospect and Grove. But mapping out a life transition may require more thought and planning. Just as we take the “in-between” seconds and minutes as blessings to pause and enrich our beings, so too should we look at transitional periods in this light. Moving to a new city or state can be daunting, separating an individual from routine and community. If this in-between period is not taken seriously, mindless internet scrolling, unfulfilling social interactions, and a lack of initiative to work efficiently for the soul may manifest. On our campus, students scour SingleYalies, perhaps rushing along the process of finding their perfect match rather than embracing singleness in the present moment. Though shifting residences, responsibilities, and relationships can surely take a toll, let us place patience and prayer at the forefront, spending our time intentionally to build connections with others rather than turning in on ourselves.
When we remember to prioritize what is good for the soul above simply what we can do in a given amount of time, we remember to look up at God’s creation rather than stress over every detail. We loosen our grip on the world spinning around us and allow ourselves to embrace whatever the present moment brings. The waiting will not always be easy—we each have crosses to bear—but it can always be intentional.
1. Melissa Kirsch. “How to Rest.” February 17, 2024. https://www. nytimes.com/2024/02/17/briefing/how-to-rest.html.
2. I Corinthians 14:40.
3. Augustine. Confessions
Emma Ventresca (BF ‘26) pursues a double major in Economics and Theater and Performance Studies. She is a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo and an avid musical theater writer. In her free time, she enjoys hiking in East Rock Park with friends.
God Through Our Day
“And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.”
- Exodus 13:21
When I first sat down to write about time, the first image that came to mind was of my windowsill perch overlooking the Davenport courtyard. I come back to this spot everyday, sit on top of the radiator covering, and look over the greenery. My favorite part about this spot is how the look outside the window changes. In the mornings, I look out on an empty lawn, with the early sunlight streaming through the window. When I come back to the dorm in the middle of the day, I look out and see students walking off to classes or sitting in the sun. At sunset, I watch the rays bathe Harkness Tower in hues of pink and orange. At night, I look out and see the fairy lights and students dressed nicely heading to parties, and friends sitting on benches catching up after a long day.
Each time I looked out, despite the changed perspective based on the sun’s position in the sky, I still saw the Davenport courtyard. Regardless of the golden sun, gray rain, dark shadows, or brilliant light, the essence of the courtyard remained the same. In the same way, despite agreement in faith in God, Christians tend to interact with God differently throughout our daily lives. In what ways do Christians’ views differ and in what ways are they the same?
With this question in mind, I developed a survey for Yale Christians to investigate the ways in which different Christians come to God throughout the day. Using the denominational and class years as filters, I was able to draw trends on data such as the time of day that individuals feel closest to or farthest from God, where they are when they feel close to God, and the kinds of activities that respondents engage in when looking for God. I then analyzed the trends and looked for correlations. While the data results were obtained from Christian responses and are then probably most helpful for other Christians,
Isaac Oberman
MORNING: Beginning Anew
“In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.”
- Psalm 5:3
As dawn breaks across the horizon, so too do college students throw off their covers and wake with the sun. The data from the survey showed that a plurality of respondents felt closest to God in the morning time, between 5 and 10 AM. I am personally a big fan of the mornings; there is such a beautiful juxtaposition of rising out of bed as the sun rises into the sky. To me, connection with God makes good sense as the sun rises. The start of a new day calls to mind images of spring, of flowers blooming, and of new life. The rising of the sun also tends to lift my eyes up to the sky to dwell on God. When I wake up, I’m often reminded of the Psalmist’s morning song: “This is the day the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).
The new day brings new challenges, but also so many new ways and new chances to thank God for the wonderful joy of experiencing life.
Survey respondents who thought of morning as the time they feel most connected to God had similar locations in mind. Most respondents who selected morning described the place as either their dorm room or their bed as they wake up, before they have left to start their day. A majority also expressed that they felt closest to God while engaging in prayer or personal worship.
There is a great benefit to connecting with God at the beginning of one’s day. Before you go out into the world, to your classes and worries, taking time to connect with God can set the whole day right. The emotion that morning respondents overwhelmingly chose to describe the feeling of being close to God was Peace. Perhaps, seeking God before our day begins allows us to connect with Him and gain a sense of peace that will settle our anxious mind and sustain us throughout our daily troubles.
MIDDAY: Chaos of Doing
“At dusk, dawn, and noon I will grieve and complain, and my prayer will be heard.”
- Psalm 55:18
In contrast to the morning, many of the respondents to the survey felt the most distant from God during the midday. In the midst of the busyness of the day, individuals get lost. Many people described getting absorbed running from activity to activity, class to class, or grinding through Psets. The emotions overwhelmingly chosen to describe the separation during midday were tiredness, feeling distracted, and busy.
The midday can teach us a valuable lesson in finding calm in the storm. Psalm 55:18 is a great reminder to me that when life is upsetting we can raise up our grievances and troubles, trusting that God is there to listen and help! A recent practice that I have taken to when feeling overwhelmed is praying the Serenity Prayer: asking God for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Taking 15 seconds to recenter oneself before returning to the task at hand can provide such a measure of peace and strength, making the previously insurmountable fear conquerable.
EVENING AND NIGHT: God Stills the Troubled Soul
“I think of you upon my bed, I remember you through the watches of the night You indeed are my savior, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy.”
- Psalm 63:7-8
Besides the morning, the times of evening and night were the most popular choice for respondents in connecting with God. I am combining them here due to the similar nature of their position in the day and the emotions that respondents associated with the times.
Those at night also seemed to connect with God in their room, but in addition, many felt their connection with God at church. I was also surprised by the type of activities that individuals talked about for feeling most connected at night. While I expected most individuals to connect more with other people in worship at night, most respondents expressed their deepest connection in prayer.
This matches a trend I noticed throughout much of the survey; individuals seemed to share that they felt most connected when they were feeling most alone. This trend makes sense, but it is something I would like to caution against. It seems that many people do not seek the deepest connection with God unless they have nowhere else to turn to. While God certainly provides comfort to those alone and in distress, it is important to remember that God is there in the best times as well. He will always be there for us, in sorrow and in joy.
PREDAWN: God Heads Us Always
“I rise before dawn and cry out; I put my hope in your words.”
- Psalm 119:147
Not many students suggested that the predawn times were their preferred times of connection with God, most likely because that is one of the few times Yale students will be asleep. However, the Bible does have some words to share about this underrated time of the day. Predawn is a time of deep loneliness and quiet. In the midst of the dark and the still, we can oftentimes worry and fear. The verse from Psalm 119 gives us comfort though; we can put our hope into God’s words, and we can know a sense of peace. The one respondent who claimed Predawn as their closest time with God described the emotion felt as security and “not being alone.” The predawn reminds us that God is with us at ALL times; even at our lowest, he is there to lift us up, giving us hope in the dark.
CONCLUSION
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
- Psalm 23:4
After reflecting on the data from the survey it is important to remember that, regardless of what time of day you personally connect with God the best or what the data from respondents says, we are all connecting with God. Scripture tells us of many ways in which God leads His people, at all times of the day. As expressed in the scripture at the start of this piece, . Though His guidance by day with pillars of cloud differed from His guidance by night with pillars of fire, God was still leading them.
We are all seeking to find God in our everyday lives. Each of our experiences look different, but that is more than okay. Just as Christ called the Jews and the Gentiles at different times and through different means, so too are each of us called to pursue God in different ways. That is just it though–even though our means and times of connection with God are different, we are all still connecting with God in our day. God is with us at all times of the day; sometimes we just need to look out the window and see. Looking back over the courtyard, we see the same courtyard in different lights. The goal is not to reject a view for being different from your preferred view, but to learn to see the beauty of the courtyard at all times of day. By talking with others and learning about the ways other Christians get closer to God day by day, we can work to walk and connect with God throughout our entire day, in golden sunshine or dark shadows.
Isaac Oberman (DP
majors in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. He loves eating cheese, long hikes, and playing with his cats.
‘26)
