Are You Clock-eyed?

Like it or not, it’s Daylight Savings Time (DST) again. As far as I can tell the practice of turning the clock forward one hour began in New Zealand around 1895 and was adopted by Germany and Austria-Hungry in 1916 and has grown to be used in many parts of the world since then. Where I grew up, and parts further north, DST was a welcomed part of the summer months after experiencing sunset about 4:00 all winter. Closer to the Arctic Circle I can definitely see the advantage to more sunshine hours in the awake hours of ones day. Personally, I don’t care if the sun is shining at 5 a.m. or not, but I do enjoy the after work time of several more hours of daylight. The whole purpose of DST in America is to extend the daylight time into the late evening, benefitting those who wish to engage in extra curricular activities during the summer months. Not all of mainland United States participates in DST which tends to make me think the people there are early to bed and early to rise. I don’t know if they are healthy, wealthy and wise, but that might be something to look into some day next winter when I’m sitting in the cold dark. Some people say it messes up their internal clock and the Greek word for that is “hogwash”. If you’re tired, take a nap; go to sleep.

Shortly after he opened his first plant, Thomas Edison noticed that his employees had gotten into a bad habit of watching the factory clock, which was the only clock in the plant. To the indefatigable (tireless) [I had to look it up too and will probably never use this word ever again.] inventor who never thought about how much time a task took, this was incomprehensible. He did not express his disapproval verbally. Instead he had dozens of clocks installed all around the plant. His goal was not to make it easier for his workers to see a clock. He did make sure that no two clocks had the same time and soon the clock watching led to so much confusion that nobody cared what time it was. I’ve been self-employed most of my life and much like a farmer watches the sun and can guess the time with great accuracy, I always had a radio playing in the background and I could tell what time it was by the programming every day. I still use the radio but my cell phone has spoiled me to doing specific tasks at precise times by setting alarms to regulate my day. Ohhh, so much to do, and so little time to do it in.

[Matthew 24:36-51] “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father… Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” I have a suspicion that one reason God does not tell us when the second coming will be is that He knows we are clock-watchers. Just as people were busy thinking about how much time they had left at work until lunch break, so we would be tempted to focus on only getting ready when the time was near. Instead, we are called on to be the people of God every minute of every day - not to get ready - but to be ready. Mature Christians have been “…put in charge of the servants of his household to give them their food (preach to them the gospel) at the proper time… It will be good for the servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.” Sooo many lost souls to save and so little time to do it in.