Purposeful Time in the Works of Ozeki, King, and Kolvenbach

          In Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, Nao, when contemplating suicide, discusses her newfound understanding of time. She claims, “There’s nothing like realizing that you don’t have much time left to stimulate your appreciation for the moments of your life. I mean it seems corny, but I really started to experience stuff for the first time” (332). Further, she considers the purpose of her time, claiming that “For the first time in my life, I had a project and a goal to focus on” (332). This goal, she decides, is to write down the story of Jiko’s life. This understanding of time differs from Nao’s judgment of it at the start of the novel, where she wrote, “Whenever I think of my stupid empty life, I come to the conclusion that I’m just wasting my time, and I’m not the only one” (22). Over the course of her diary, Nao learns from Jiko and from her own experiences to have a greater appreciation for the time she has while she is still alive. At this point in the novel, it is clear that she does not have a full appreciation for it, as she is contemplating ending her life and her time, but she finds a sense of purpose and, even if for just a short time, feels that she is not just “wasting time.” 

          Nao's missional understanding of time, or the idea that we have a purpose that we must fulfill in our time, is a view that Martin Luther King Jr. supports in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and that Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. promotes in his essay “The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education.” Throughout his letter, King details the reasons why all individuals must spend their time working for justice, both on behalf of themselves and of others, as this ought to be their mission or purpose. He claims that “Time is neutral” and that “It can be used wither destructively or constructively” (4). He explains that to use time in a constructive way is imperative and that individuals must not waste time, but ought to act out in order to fight against injustice. To not act in response to injustice, in the eyes of King, is to make a situation worse, as “Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection” (3). Like King, Kolvenbach stresses the importance of using time constructively and calls all people, particularly those invested in the Jesuit mission, to actively pursue justice. He talks about how possessing the virtue of justice is not enough—one must use his or her time to act, and to show love “not only in words but also in deeds” (27). 

          In A Tale for the Time Being, Nao comes to realize the idea of purposeful time. She seeks to use her time in order to complete the mission of writing an account of Jiko’s life for the benefit of readers (or of a single reader) and for the memory of Jiko, that it may live on and not be erased from memory. This appreciation for or understanding of time is, on a smaller scale, the view of it that King and Kolvenbach both call for. This view of time sees it as something that need not be wasted, but ought to be used constructively and to be aimed at a purpose, such as for the purpose of working for justice.