I have had the privilege of getting to know Sebastian over the last few years. We spent many wintery Saturday afternoons hammering out an essay that would gain him entrance into an esteemed university. Sebastian, was, is, like an overflowing fountain: abundant, generous, and sparkling in sprit. Nothing is not interesting to him. We had wonderful conversations over those weeks and months. I, as a steadfast humanist, and he, as a passionate physicist, realized that we were talking and reaching for the same “pathway of return” as theologians and metaphysicists call it.

I came up with the name for this blog years ago and put it on the back burner. Life was happening and it had to sit there for a while. Then, during Sebastian’s and my talks about everything under the sun, I understood what the name meant to me. I don’t think it’s obvious yet, but the themes running through the posts coincide with the back idea. I hope too that in the organic nature of things, it will change and grow deeper. Simply put, Phantom Noise In Ordinary Time is where the humanistic and the metaphysic intersect, or where the ethereal and the empirical conjoin.

Phantom noise is a medical phenomenon, as well as a figurative one, when one hears or feels something that was once there, but is no longer, yet one still senses what was lost. Ordinary time, is how we humans measure time kronos, as opposed to God, or the universe, whose time is not really measurable to us – Kairos — a never ending continuum of cycle and pulse. It is a way we exist – the friction between the two and the merging of the two within ourselves. Our memory and our emotions don’t work linearly, and time is a mystery that we desperately attempt to measure. Memory of what has happened, or what is yet to happen, is another mystery we experience

I know I am way out of my wheelhouse here, but I hope in my attempt that this offers some explanation. I would like readers to decide for themselves what the name, the blog, the idea means. I offer this post as a tribute to my friend Sebastian who brought me closer to contemplating what is beyond understanding, and for his logical mind and awakened soul.

Clare Irwin

P.S. This blog owes much to Richard Rohr and his daily meditations, and the extraordinary work of the Center for Action and Contemplation.

P.P.S. For those who found this way too heavy or “out there” don’t worry I’ll go back to reporting on lighter fare.