Frederick Franck turned to the door of the building, a massive wooden sculpture in the form of the sun and its rays, and pushed it open.I saw that it turned on a central axis, so that only one half of the door was open at any one time.To remind us, he murmured, that we step into this sacred space as we walk into life, alone and silently . . .I looked around me and marveled at this ninety-year-old man from whose hand had sprung everything I could see.He had carved the door, made the stained-glass windows and every other object in sight.Pacem in Terris, I realized, was one man’s act of artistic faith: a work of art outside the parameters of the art world, and also a religious statement unconfined by any religion.
Our relationship to time has become corrupted because we allow ourselves very little experience of the TIMEless. We speak continuously of SAVING time, but time in it richness is most often lost to us when we are busy without relief. We speak of STEALING time as if it no longer belonged to us We speak of NEEDING time as if it wasn't around us already in every moment. We want to MAKE time for ourselves as if it were in our power to o so. Time is the conversation with absence and visitation, the frontier between ourselves and those we love; the hours become ripe with happening only when we are attentive, patient, and present.