Adjusting Time
I am not sure why the seasonal time change adjustments to our clocks start me pondering. The old, familiar trope, “A stopped clock is correct twice a day” started me down a counter-clockwise spiral. In my office I have a pile of clocks that I fondly refer to as “The Persistence of Memory Graveyard”; all the clocks in the collection stopped at different times. As I deliberated on which other clocks on the premises I could get a head start on the time change adjustment, those clocks no one would see until after the time change, an odd thought struck me: Does a stopped clock that is not adjusted for the time change still have the correct time twice a day? Hear me out, follow my logic. If a running clock is not adjusted for the time change, it will not show the proper time. So therefore, if a stopped clock is not adjusted, it also should not reflect the proper time, it would be an hour off. How does one even trust a stopped clock? How does one trust the concept of time? Allow me to give you a glimpse into my attempt to adjust time.
One of my earliest memories is of a Grandfather’s Clock in the Narthex of the church in which I was baptized. The memory was generated at the wedding of my aunt and soon to be uncle. I remember being in the narthex, my aunt, and the clock but little else of that event sixty-one years ago. When we adjust the time for the intervening years: the family gatherings, visits, births, baptisms, weddings, the times that make family, it just seems there should have been more time. Last week time stopped for my uncle. There will be no new memories to be made with him, only remembering as a stopped clock. Godspeed Uncle Bob.
Adjust the clocks. You will not adjust time.
Trust the Promises,
Steve Skiver