Yesterday I went to drop off two of my in-law’s clocks at a tiny workshop where a lady fixes antique time machines. The lady was a story in itself, but for this post, I want to focus on the clocks. My husband has almost a clock obsession. He has plans of someday building a clock tower attached to a chapel (that is in the plans as well). The clock will run with carved wood pieces. I am probably not technical enough to explain all this, nor do I really understand it all, but for the sake of time—that’s simple a really old way of making clocks. In fact, so old that it goes back to the monasteries.

It was the monastic life that created a need for the invention of clocks in the first place. In our fast, rushed, to-the-minute lifestyle, who could have guessed that the original purpose for the daily hours, was, well…The Daily Hours (i.e. the prayers and readings of the Church)? The mechanical time-keeper allowed nuns and monks to keep track of the hours of prayer, thus inciting the bell-ringer to call the community to worship and discipleship.

My husband recently bought a pocket-watch that is over a hundred years old. Because it was made a hundred years ago it is still working. It is a quality piece of workmanship. If you open up the back, you can literally watch time unfold. The gears click and turn, and so goes our seconds, minutes, hours. I am constantly becoming more aware of how fast time goes by as I watch it tick through its moments. The trees we plant in our yard this fall, will be full grown when I turn about sixty, and my life will be drawing to an end. It’s a sober reminder that we are but a breath and that all things pass away. ... more