Are Your years the years of humans?

Job 10:4-5

Does the date matter when we suffer? The cultural marking of a new year on whatever calendar matters little to nature or to the way the world works inside our veins and beneath the earth’s surface. The groans of human suffering transcend time, beyond borders, as Job’s journey of reckoning with sorrow and injustice is shared by all of us, whether wed’ like to admit it or not.

As we stand at the cusp of another year, we might ask ourselves: how can we make our time sacred, not just in rituals and celebrations, but in the way we show up for one another, in the ways we create meaning in the midst of chaos?

The suffering Job responds to his peers’ pious words, and rages at God for being oblivious to his pain, or worse, not seeing him at all.

Job concedes that the divine reality is beyond any human reference and transcends the totality of time. He addresses God directly - with awe mixed with sarcasm and pain:

הַעֵינֵי בָשָׂר לָךְ אִם־כִּרְאוֹת אֱנוֹשׁ תִּרְאֶה׃ הֲכִימֵי אֱנוֹשׁ יָמֶיךָ אִם־שְׁנוֹתֶיךָ כִּימֵי גָבֶר׃

Do You have the eyes of flesh? Is Your vision that of a mere mortal?

Are Your days the days of a mortal, Are Your years the years of humans?

Job 10:4-5

Time, for Job, is not simply a matter of counting days and months. God’s perception of time is unfathomable, infinite, and beyond our limited human capacity to understand.

As we stand on the precipice of a new year, this reflection on the nature of time is a humbling reminder that the neat boxes of calendars, with their structured weeks, months, and seasons, only serve to help us orient ourselves within the vast and often chaotic flow of existence. The dates we mark with joy, sorrow, or anticipation may offer comfort in their predictability, but they do not align neatly with the unfolding of life, which does not heed the ticking of clocks or the turning of pages on a calendar.

The new year brings with it a sense of renewal, of fresh starts and new possibilities. It is a time when we gather, hope, and strive to make sense of the past while looking ahead to what might come. We say “Happy New Year!” as if this simple greeting can dissolve the weight of the suffering that fills our world, especially in places like the Middle East where conflict and pain persist, and yet it is precisely in this tension that we can find a deeper resonance of meaning.

Perhaps the sacredness of time lies not in its neat divisions, but in how we choose to inhabit it. Each moment, as fleeting as it may be, carries the potential for holiness when we open ourselves to the mysteries of existence. We honor time not by mastering it, but by letting it teach us about the fragility and beauty of life.

This reminds me of the words of Rainer Maria Rilke:

"The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens."

Rilke offers us a glimpse into a timeless presence, where we are not bound by the ticking clock, but shaped by a flow of moments that transcend the limits we impose.

As the new year approaches, we may not have control over the suffering in the world, but we do have the power to hold space for the possibility of healing, for the courage to walk through uncertainty, and for the commitment to make time sacred in our daily lives.

May we hold each other’s hurts with empathy and patience, as want to hold our own - each of us a fragment of Job.

And may we honor time—its fleeting nature and its eternal mysteries—and may this new year bring us closer to understanding how to live with hope and in greater harmony with the world, even in the midst of suffering that has no need for clocks.

Welcome 2025. Let’s be better.

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