Imagine Time Folding

Three Moments That Found Me When I Wasn’t Looking

Which activities make you lose track of time?

When Time Bends: Three Ordinary Moments That Saved Me

There are clocks everywhere.

On phones, dashboards, microwaves.
In our bones.

We chase the blinking digits—
the meetings, the pickups, the fifteen minutes we’re behind.
And sometimes, if we’re honest,
we wear our busyness like armor.
Or like shame.

But then—
sometimes—
time changes.

It exhales.
It bends.

It stops trying to manage us
and starts trying to meet us.

These are the moments I’m learning to trust.
Small ones.
Unannounced.
Unspectacular—except they rearranged something inside me.

Here are three.

---

A Smile in the Dark

Gray morning.
Sky like wet cement.
The kind of day that doesn’t open its eyes.

I wasn’t late.
I wasn’t early.
I was just walking across campus,
forgetting to be a person.

Then she appeared.
No earbuds.
No scroll.
Just walking like she meant it.

She looked up.
And smiled.

Not a flirt. Not a fawn.
A real smile. The kind that says: I see you. Just that. And it’s enough.

I smiled back.
We passed.

But something in me stood still.
My chest softened.
My eyes cleared.
The world felt briefly breathable.

She didn’t fix me.
She didn’t need to.

She reminded me I was still here.

---

An Arm on Ice

The sidewalks were glass that week.
I was in sneakers. Smart.
She wasn’t.

Ahead of me, a young woman in dress shoes edged forward,
arms outstretched like a tightrope walker—
poised, careful, too proud to fall.

I caught up beside her and offered my arm.
She took it. No words. Just yes.

Step.
Pause.
Breathe.

Her hand let go when the ground grew honest again.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Gone.

But that stillness, that soft mutuality—
it stayed.
It still stays.

It is a sacred thing
to steady another
just long enough
for both of you to keep walking.

---

A Song in the Cold

Champaign-Urbana in January.
Flat. Frozen.
The wind doesn’t whistle—it scolds.

Thousands of us had come for the big missions thing.
Lanyards. Programs.
Big questions that wanted big answers.

I stepped out one night to think.

And that’s when I heard them.

Just a few people on the corner—no stage, no hype.
They were singing:
Be Thou My Vision.
How Great Thou Art.

No performance.
Just praise.

The kind of harmony that doesn’t just hit the ear—
it brushes the soul.

It doesn’t ask you to join.
It invites you to stop pretending.

So I did.
I stopped.

I stood in the freezing air
and let the ache in their voices answer a question
I didn’t know how to ask.

I didn’t sing.
I didn’t move.

But something in me
opened.

---

A Final Thought (or Maybe a Prayer)

I don’t have a plan to sell you.
No five steps to peace.
No time hacks.

But I do have this:

Sometimes the holiest thing you can do
is to stop.
Let the moment come.
Let it do what it came to do.

Smile back.
Take the arm.
Listen to the cold song
and let it thaw something.

We are not machines.
We are not behind.
We are not forgotten.

We are still here.
Still loved.
Still being met—
if we’d only notice.

---

What about you?

What’s your moment that didn’t fix you,
but found you?

I’d love to hear.
Leave it below.
Or just carry it in your pocket today.

—Dean

---

Tags:
#TimeBends #SacredOrdinary #MomentsThatFindUs #PresenceIsEnough #Forming20 #BrianDoyleVibes #WendellBerryKnows #StillnessWins #SpiritualFormation