The Art of Time Travel -

The Art of Time Travel

Toast Masters 5-7 Minute Speech  Given 9-14-19

I am here to share a rare gift with you, a key to adventure and wisdom, that begins with the word—imagine. In the blink of an eye, you have been transported to another galaxy where there are super-heroes. The most powerful is Gift-Master. He has selected you to be ambassadors and offers to endow you with one superpower of your choice to use for good on our planet. What would you ask for?

Today, I will pass on to you my superpower, which I consider an extraordinary gift from God—the ability to travel through time. Before I share this gift with you, you need to understand the nature of time and time-travel.

According to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, time slows down or speeds up depending on the speed at which you move relative to something or someone else. If you were zooming across the Milky Way Galaxy approaching the speed of light, inside the safety of a comfy spaceship, of course, you would age much slower than your friends on Earth.[i]

GPS satellite technology, equipped with very accurate clocks, provide evidence that supports the theory. The satellites’ orbital velocity above the Earth, relative to us crawling along on the surface, and the effects of gravity make their clocks gain 38 microseconds a day. Engineers must make adjustments accordingly.[ii] Though this evidence supports the ability to travel forward through time at an accelerated rate, it does not support the ability to travel back in time.

Regardless, scientists are fascinated by the concept of traveling back and forward in time. Many have developed theories about how it could or should be done. Unfortunately, their ideas are way too complex and impractical.

For instance:

• Wormholes
• Circling around a black hole
• Time Machines that would precisely control extreme gravitational fields to bend time back upon itself

The evidence we experience reveals that we are all time-travelers on a set pace forward. At conception, we enter time and space; we live and age as we travel forward in time and leave it behind at our death. But there is an alternative outside the bounds of science. It is an art.

Over the years, through practice and experience, I have mastered the art. From my early childhood, I traveled back to ancient times from Egypt across the Red Sea through the wilderness with Moses and the Hebrew people. I heard a donkey talk to the prophet Baalam. I watched David slay Goliath and lived among the chosen virgins, including the future Queen Esther, in the Palace of King Artaxerxes of Persia. I have walked with Jesus during his ministry along the shores of Galilea, heard his teachings while sitting at his feet in Peter’s house in Capernaum. Sobbing, I witnessed his horrific crucifixion. I traveled through the Roman Empire from Israel to beyond Hadrian’s wall in first-century Britannia. I have lived in a Scottish castle and wandered the highlands during the middle ages. A native American Iroquois longhouse near the Hudson river was my home in the 17th century. I was caught in an 1861 Civil War battle in Missouri. These are only a handful of my adventures into the past.

As to my adventures in the future, I know only the general direction of it, and many possible variations. Dreams, plans, goals, and hopes for the future take me there. My decisions, (in the present), are based on what I have learned from the past, plus projected outcomes of plans analyzed for feasibility.

Do you yearn to know and experience history or the many possible paths of the future? Then use your new superpower.

 Using it for time-travel, unlike Hollywood or scientific versions of time-travel, is safe. Though you don’t need devices to take you, you do need tools to prepare you.

They are:

• The Bible
• Museums
• Libraries filled with history book, archeological books, biographies, autobiographies, novels, and epics written long ago
• Memories - Those of your great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, and your own
• Tour guides, pastors, teachers, friends
• More...

These tools are travel guides, but the trip occurs when you imagine being there. Imagination recreates the past and designs the future here in the present. Once you allow your imagination to take you back or envision the future, then allow logic and practical applications from your own experience to fill in details.

This superpower, unlike Hollywood or scientific versions of time-travel, is safe. Your journeys can help you (and maybe the world) learn from the wisdom and mistakes of the past to set a better course for the future.

Now that you know the keys to time-travel use it wisely. Use it often. 

  [i] Elizabeth Howell, “Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes, & Possibilities,” Space.com, November 14, 2017, https://www.space.com/21675-time-travel.html

[ii] Elizabeth Howell, “Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes, & Possibilities,” Space.com, November 14, 2017, https://www.space.com/21675-time-travel.html