We hear reminders virtually every day of just how fast time is passing. Media and internet ads shout, “Only ___ more shopping days until Christmas! Better get all those presents purchased.” Somehow in the days leading up to our celebration of the birth of our Savior and the transition to a new year, the clock seems to shift into overdrive. A couple of popular songs underscore this seasonal reality. The late great balladeer Jim Croche titled one of his songs “Time in a Bottle,” beginning the first stanza with “If I could save time in a bottle….if I could make days last forever….” But he concludes “But there never seems…