The past doesn’t exist. The past is merely a memory of a previous state of the present. The future doesn’t exist either. It is merely an imagined state of the present.
More frankly, time doesn’t exist. The concept of time is simply an abstraction from our experience of the present. Because the present is all there is. The past only exists in our memory, regret, or relief, and the future only in our anticipation, despair, and hope. There is literally nothing beyond the now. Now is the eternal present.
Wave
Sure, in the present we experience traces from “previous” states of the present. Likewise, not yet realized states of the present (i.e., the future) will experience the effects of the present we inhabit. The present itself is like a wave, which ripples through space. Its wavelike shape is relative to our conscious relation to the experience of the present. The higher the curve, the higher our awareness of a state of the present and the closer its proximity to the current configuration of the present.
We may also speak of a horizon that reaches both backward and forward. But we must remember it is but our mental projection upon it; our gathering up in our mind of other previous or potential configurations of the present. Because time doesn’t exist.
The Eternal Present
Time is a concept for which we tend to use spatial metaphors. That is how we relate to it. And because we can hold this concept communally, we get the idea of roots, history, planning, and organizing. Because we agree time exists, we can live.
The present is the eternal now. It passes through something, or better, something passes through it. Or perhaps we need to see the present as a kaleidoscope in which there is a constant reconfiguring of parts into new horizons. Looked at it from this point of view, the present is already eternity, which simply is, creating the illusion of time as its configuration changes.
Past and Future
All this has implications for how we interact with what we call the past and the future, especially our past and our future. Not that we should abandon our sense of time or give up hope as we are stranded in the eternal present without a history and nothing to look forward to. The illusory nature of time should help us focus on the present.
Changing the past is not possible (because there is no such thing) but we can focus on the traces in the present of what we refer to as the past. The present is also not a deterministic machine over which we have absolutely no control. What we do in the present affects the present as it develops in new states of being. So, our will, our hope, our projection on the present as a dimension of time matters.
Future and past, however, will always appear as horizons, precisely because they are not really there and because we can only talk about them as spacial dimensions.
Advent
If time doesn’t exist, what about advent? What about hope? What about the coming of the Christ Child? I think it is this. When we talk about the incarnation, we emphasize the Word became flesh. Correctly so. Because in Christ God has become one of us, he has entered, if you will, the present. Divine revelation is not about delivering us from the effects of our mortality. It is also not about a future heaven or a future paradise. Advent is the coming in the now of our lives.
The incarnation, Jesus, Christmas—the whole shebang—is about the radicalization of the present. Here and now is where the rubber meets the road. Here is where we go to the gallows, cry our eyes out, but also share our lives with friends and loved ones. Here is where peace on earth must materialize. This is it. The present is now. Because there’s nothing else but the present.
This is brilliant! Thank you for spending the "time" in your present reality to share these thoughts. While the concept is a little mind bending, once digested slightly, removes many fears, uncertainties and doubts, presently! Live in the here and now, not in the past or future!