Home 
Columns Cyndee Peters Timing
Columns Cyndee Peters Timing
| Timing |
| Written by Cyndee Peters |
| Friday, 06 March 2009 00:00 |
 One of my absolute favorite authors is the African-American theologian Howard Thurman. Dr. Thurman, I am sorry to say is no longer with us, but his brilliance and eloquence lives on in his rich collection of writings. He wrote with great mastery of words about the simplest of things and his own personal journey of faith. Please do “Goggle” him, he is someone we all should be familiar with.One of the must beautiful and profound sentences he wrote was the following: “There is a time of winter in every adventure”. I read this for the first during a period of great sorrow in my personal life and at a time when nothing I tried to do, bore fruit. I am nowhere near as eloquent as Dr. Thurman but this is what it meant to me. There will be times when no matter how much you want something, no matter how well you set about trying to make it happen, how good your plan is or how much time and energy you devote to it; it will not matter. At this moment in time, it will not come to be. And it is at these junctions along the path of life my friends, that the men (women) are separated from the boys (girls). All adults and even young people have bumped up against these defining moments and many of us including yours truly, blow it. We take it personal, get up on our high horses and ride home. Perfectly understandable and quite human, but it doesn’t get us what we want nor does it develop us as individuals. If there is one thing vital to singers, dancers, musicians etc., it is timing. That sense of knowing when to and when not to, how long, how much, when to stop, when to go, well the list goes on. Actually timing, that sense of knowing is a component in almost everything we do. From knowing how much salt to put into the stew or to knowing just how long to hold a note in a song---not to mention the art of kissing. A lack of timing or a sense of knowing can mean the difference between something being regarded as unforgettable as opposed to, not. All great comedians have mastered this. In their world it’s called delivery. They can take the most banal situations in life, serve it up with perfect timing and have us rolling on the floor. It truly is a gift to behold. But then there is something called Murphy’s Law. For those of you who are not acquainted with Murphy’s Law, it is simply this: If it’s gonna go to Hell, it’s gonna go to Hell. On Murphy-days the phenomena known as timing is nowhere to be found. One encounters a steady stream of “great idea but we have decided to go another way” or “sorry we don’t make that, do that or sell that model, shade, type anymore”. On these days no one you call is available and all the traffic lights seem to be stuck on red. It’s no way, no how, no more and yet somehow we all manage to live through these kinds of days as well. Although we may doubt it, they too only last for 24 hours. Murphy-days make for great conversation at parties and should fill each and every one of us with profound appreciation for those times when we discover that today, we are in the “zone” and our timing is perfect! But remember someday, winter will come to call.  Cyndee Books I recommend by Howard Thurman: For the Inward journey & Meditations of the Heart All can be bought on-line at www.amazon.com, and most cost less than 10.00 USD This article is the property of Cyndee Peters AB, Stockholm, Sweden and may not be used or duplicated without the expressed permission of the author.
www.cyndeepeters.com March. 2009
|
