Reflection on the time change and our spiritual clock

Once again we have observed the twice-yearly ritual of changing our time by moving our clocks an hour. What a silly little ritual. I would much prefer staying with Daylight Savings Time. Getting up in the dark has never bothered me … remember I was a Miami Herald paperboy for too many years ... but having it get dark around 5 O’clock in the afternoon does. Oh, I know the reasoning behind this crazy practice, but I am not sure if it actually produces what it is meant to produce. I will mumble a little curse on Ben Franklin’s grave for making the suggestion that we follow this practice.

Anyway, all of the clocks have been changed or at least I think they have been changed. Normally, sometime within the next week I will run across one of the smaller clocks that we have in the house that I have forgotten. The old grandfather clock in the living/dining room is always running fast or slow no matter how often I adjust the pendulum. And then there is the clock in one of cars that just boggles my mind. Sometime this next week I will something as I play around with it and bingo, it will be adjusted to the new time. Why can’t I remember how to do that from that last time?

The clocks that I like the best are the ones that adjust themselves. The ones on the computer, cell phone and DVD player – especially the DVD player because that was the one which always blinked 12:00 none stop. I also have a wristwatch that will get adjusted sometime this week. Some satellite controls it. It is kind of a cool watch, but since I had a new battery put in last year it has been running a half-hour late and no watch repair can figure out why.

My waking/sleeping clock will take about 8 to 10 weeks to make the adjustment and catch up to the new time. No matter how hard I try I just get sleepy an hour earlier during the winter months than I do during the summer months and the bed becomes too inviting to refuse. I’ve been known to change all the clocks first thing Saturday morning so that I would be eating in the “new” time – all in the attempt to “fool” my brain into thinking within the context of the changed time … but alas, that hasn’t worked as well as I thought it should.

I am reminded each spring and each fall that we ought to be adjusting our time with the Lord. Much like the clocks around our house that are kind of taken for granted until they need to be reset to a new hour, or have their batteries changed, or reset because of a power outage in the neighbor, or have the pendulum adjusted … our spiritual clock, so to speak, kind of just ticks along and falls into patterns that cause it to fall out of sync with God. And so, part of my spring and fall ritual, as I adjust the clocks, is to pause and evaluate what adjustments I need to make to my spiritual clock so that my internal being will be inline with God’s.

It matters not what time we say the Sun should rise nor what time we say the Sun should set; it matters not what the hour might be, be it an hour early or an hour later; it matters not what our biological clock says about being awake or being asleep; the hour for walking with him is always now … the hour for serving him is always now … the moment to be in a relationship with him is always the present moment of our life.

Quote for today: As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. Henry David Thoreau