David Murdock column: On the opportune time (and finding a certain poem)
It’s Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, about 4:30 in the morning. This is not my usual time for writing the column. Something just happened, though, that prompts me to write right now.
The ancient Greeks pointed out so very long ago that there is an “opportune time” for things. They had a word — kairos — that differentiated “opportune tune” from “sequential” or “chronological” time. At least, that’s what I remember from graduate school, but I can’t find it in my notes right now. Another one of those things I remember from my formal studies but cannot quite find in my notes.
There has been one thing in particular that I’ve been trying to find for decades now — a fleeting, ephemeral mystery that doesn’t quite haunt my mind as much as it simply slips into my conscious thoughts every now and again. In grad school all those years ago, I read a lot of poetry. A lot of it. Some of it so memorable that it lives in my head; some so forgettable that it fled my mind when given the first chance; and some … well, some of it’s up there, but I cannot quite put a finger on the particulars like the poem’s title or the poet’s name.
One poem I read one time years ago never quite left me. Until today, I didn’t remember the title or poet. I could recall some details, though. It was an American poem of the 19th century, but that doesn’t really help. There’s a lot of 19th-century American poetry. The gist was that a state legislator was speaking to his colleagues. For some reason, they wanted to adjourn, but the legislator explained that even if it were Judgment Day, the Lord would find him at his work.Then, they debated laws concerning fisheries.
For some reason I’ve never understood, that poem stuck with me. I’ll stress it again — I remembered that there was a poem out there that expressed that general sentiment in a striking way, but not a way striking enough that any detail that would make it easily “findable” remained in my mind. So, over the years, I searched for it off and on. Not really any drastic measures, but in spare moments I’d search the internet. Anytime that I was with someone who might know the poem, I asked if that person knew it. Those sorts of things.
It’s been my experience that the Lord will show me what the Lord wants me to find when the Lord wants me to find it. Today must be the Lord’s “opportune time” for me to find that poem, because … something mentioned in a devotional reading this morning led me right to it!
While explicating Luke 12:35-40 in this morning’s devotional for “Our Daily Bread,” James Banks writes about events of May 19, 1780, “New England’s Dark Day,” when “heavy clouds of smoke from massive wildfires in Canada” caused such a “surreal darkness” that “many wondered if it might be judgment day.”
Banks continues that in the Connecticut Legislature “some considered adjourning because of the darkness, [but] Abraham Davenport responded, ‘I am against adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.’”
As soon as I read it, I knew I could find the poem. Using those details, I Googled it and found the poem “Abraham Davenport” by John Greenleaf Whittier. In Whittier’s poem, Davenport says, “And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, / Let God do his work, we will see to ours,” and they start debating — you guessed it — “An act to amend an act to regulate / The shad and alewive fisheries.”
So, I have this beautiful poem in front of me, written by a poet I’ve not read consistently since graduate school, many questions to answer as I read it, and … absolutely no time at all to do anything with it right now.
In fact, I didn’t have time to write this column today. This day has many tasks that must be accomplished. I was considering all those tasks when I sat down to my devotionals this morning, making a list in my head of all that must be done and worrying whether I’ve had time to do it all. Frankly, I was starting to worry and fret just a little bit.
And that’s when the Lord’s opportune time took over. Before I read the explication by Banks, I read over all of Luke 12, and my eyes rested on verse 22, where the Lord says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.” I had literally been thinking when and where to have lunch today in all the hurly-burly of it all.
Events like this one astound me. Think about the time frames involved. I’ve been searching for that poem for decades. Banks must have written the devotional months ago so that it could be printed in this month’s issue. And it all came together for me today, telling me something that I needed to hear. The opportune time is indeed the opportune time.
David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted at murdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions reflected are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock on the Lord's opportune time
