If I could save time in a bottle… I would save the smell of new mown hay ruffled across the hills in sunlight. The sound of an old timer’s chuckle and a baby giggle, Appalachian Spring playing and dancers dancing, and Junie B’s good morning nicker would be in my bottle. I would save the smell of babies sweet from their baths frosted with lotion and love. The taste of mama’s fried chicken and Dairy Queen Soft Serve ice cream topped with a chocolate shell, Silver Queen corn on the cob straight from daddy’s garden, the first new potatoes soft and creamy melt in your mouth deliciousness would be in my bottle, too. The feelings of freedom and jubilation that were a part of my baptism, part of my music, part of my sacred dance, part of my art and writing… the times I feel God looking over my shoulder, lifting me up in a leap, guiding and applauding and loving me… These would go in my bottle.
Obituaries are one way we try to keep time in a bottle, I think. Our newspaper no longer provides free obituaries, just a one line death notice. The rise of lengthy obituaries, small short stories, combined with newspapers downsizing community news (no more cooking sections or news from the different small communities in the county, no more pictures of small boys holding up the large mouth bass they caught in Papaw’s pond) is an interesting irony for me. If we cannot have news of our neighbors daily lives that is not murder and mayhem, we can have an obituary that tells the stories of our lives even if we have to pay for it.
The Psalmist sings,” My times are in thy hand…Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love “.God is saving the times of our lives in the bottle of being that surrounds us in grace and mercy all the days of our lives. And when the times of our lives come to an end on earth, the time of our life is just beginning…
Thanks to Jim Croce for the song “If I Could Save Time In A Bottle…
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