A Matter of Time

I love the idea of being able to straddle two centuries. Having lived the majority of my life in the previous century, in addition, I knew several relatives well who were born in the late 1800’s—my maternal grandmother and grandfather and their siblings, as well as my fraternal grandmother who was born in 1875. Oh yes—there was my mother’s fraternal grandfather, whom I also knew as a child. He was born during the Civil War and died when I was nine or ten.

What brought this all to mind was realizing that my mother-in-law, Ann Suter Diehl, was born 100 years ago this coming May.

As many of you know, the concept of time travel fascinates me. I don’t foresee me engaging in that, literally,  but having known people who lived 100 or more years ago and knowing some details of how they lived ,gives me an inkling of what time travel would be like.

To add to my interest, my next writing project is based on my great-great grandmother’s life. She died in 1921 so my mother didn’t even get a chance to know her, but her husband wrote a short autobiographical sketch about him and his family, so I am becoming acquainted with these folks. Traveling back through time, I will get to know them and imagine their emotions as they embraced joyful times and faced death and poverty.

It would be fascinating to talk to these relatives from long ago and see what advice they would have for us in this century. The physical changes on our planet would astound them—jet planes, cell phones, computers. But judging from the lessons we can glean from studying the Bible whose characters lived and died long before my family members of two centuries ago, the temperament of human beings has not changed.

So I’m guessing my ancestors’ words of wisdom would echo that of Jesus (as they were mostly People of the Book)—Love God with all your strength and lovingly accept yourself so you can lovingly accept those around you.