The Happy Moron

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. — Ephesians 5:15-16 (NIV)

May the Almighty and merciful Lord grant unto you pardon and remission of all your sins, time for amendment of life, and the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit. — Order of Compline

I’ve always had a neutral view of time; I’ve never thought it either malicious or compassionate.  I remember reading that passage in Ephesians and being taken aback. I was shocked; I had never heard someone call the days evil.

Time is of course, measured only by events – by those things which we put inside it. A unit of time is the motion of a planet; inside a watch, it is an oscillation of a quartz crystal.

A good day is a day that we stock with good activities; an evil day must then be one stocked with evil things.

A while back, I obsessively logged my time for a week straight, tracking my activities at 15 minute intervals. I wanted some sense of where my time was spent; I wanted some sense of where my life was being spent. Was it good or evil?

In Compline (nightly prayers), the prayer is for more time; and the particular nature of this time is that it is filled with amendment of life.

If Ephesians is warning us that the world is filling its days such that they are evil, Compline is reminding us that it is *our* role to fill them with something of a different nature entirely.