An Examination of My Use of Time

Leo Rock, SJ

(Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, 20)

Killing time

How do I kill time?

Let me count the ways.

By worrying about things

over which I have no control.

Like the past,

Like the future.

By harboring resentment

and anger

over hurts

real or imagined.

By disdaining the ordinary

or, rather, what I

so mindlessly

call ordinary.

By concern over what’s in it for me,

rather than what’s in me

for it.

By failing to appreciate what is

because of might-have-beens,

should-have-beens,

could-have-beens.

These are some of the ways

I kill time.

Jesus didn’t kill time.

He gave life to it.

His own.