There are those who believe time is the point of an arrow, hurtling through space, with nothing before or behind the arrow point. In this view, there is no future time nor past time, just present time. Others believe time is a never-ending river, a river that has always been there and always will be there, where every living thing enters the river in its time and drifts downstream until time to leave. In this view, the future is always down river, the past always up river, with everyone and everything who has ever lived or ever will live in the river at the same time, though each aware only of those in his own infinitely small stretch of river. Neither view proves or disproves the existence of a Creator God, neither view answers the question of what are we doing in the river or at the point of the arrow. For that we must look into ourselves.

 

 

Is time the point of an arrow

Or a never-ending river

Will lives be spent in sorrow

Or joy with God the giver

Of time and love and life

Who gives a child to laugh

Where happiness and strife

Are lines upon the graph

That heaven keeps on file

And marks up every day

And traces us the while

We work and love and play

For me the river’s deep

And flowing much too fast

With memories to keep

Of faces from the past

We enter far upstream

And slowly drift the tide

Awake in God’s good dream

Till we are by His side