“Destination sickness” is a catchy phrase. My personal creed includes the simple line: be present and mindful. I have found it a serious challenge to live up to that deceptively simple exhortation. God placed us in Time, where we live in the Eternal Now, looking behind us with imperfect memories of an (apparent) unchangeable Past and facing—nowadays with unprecedented anxiety—an (apparent) unwritten Future.

You red what I wrote: I intentionally put “apparent” in parentheses. A friend introduced me to the existence of a modern concept by quipping, “Time is an illusion.” Implied by Special Relativity, it is called Eternalism. Believers argue that Past, Present, and Future are real and that all three tenses exist in Einstein's four-dimensional spacetime. Isn't that determinism? No! Our Eternal God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—existed, exists, and will always exist outside of this 4D spacetime cosmos that He created ex nihilo. God is supremely sovereign, yet he made us to make free choices in the Eternal Now. Does that make your head spin? It makes my head spin.

Eternalism is a glimpse into the eternal nature of God. Scientists interpret it as the "block universe." I trust God not to defy our common sense about our past being fixed and our future being the result of our choices. Perhaps that which we theorize as the block universe is, in God-made reality, a view into the memory of God, which Scripture depicts as transcending time altogether.

Having wandered along the cosmic timeline in the previous three paragraphs, I'll land this rocket by putting my credal line in the context of my whole personal Centering Creed:

Life is challenging / Timing is crucial / Be neither early nor late / Be present and mindful / Pace yourself.