Turning Back the Clock

By Harry T. Cook
11/1/13

 

Harry T. Cook"I don't have the time" is a common complaint that generally comes with a sigh. My mother was wont to say in reply, "Everyone has the same 24 hours." You could sense a question tinged with mild disdain in her unspoken comment, "So what's the matter with you?" But if daylight time is the issue, then everyone has a greater amount of it from the winter solstice to the summer solstice and a lesser amount from the latter back toward the former.

 

Come 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3, wherever one is in all but two of America's 50 states and in most of Canada, an hour will be added to the day by the deceptively simple task of setting the clocks back 60 minutes. The same thing occurred a week earlier in several countries of the world, all marking the end of daylight savings time for 2013.

 

If ever there were a strange locution, "daylight savings" is one. No daylight is saved by adjusting a clock. In the fall, the change to what is known as "standard time" allows the light of day to dawn earlier and wane earlier, all the while being more and more attenuated as the December solstice approaches.

 

Come the second Sunday of March, the clocks are set ahead an hour. The idea is that, as the daylight waxes by virtue of the tilt of the axis combined with Earth's revolving movement, those countries in the Northern Hemisphere, which use the device of daylight savings time, have more daylight during the waking hours of most people. The charcoal briquette and golf course industries are known to have lobbied Congress over the years first to mandate and then maintain daylight savings time.

 

The sleeping and waking patterns of those who live and move and have their useful being during the day -- especially children -- are frequently disoriented by the change in clock time. When the semiannual shift occurs during a red-eye transcontinental flight in a country as broad as the United States, such disorientation is magnified for all on board.

 

The concept of "standard time" was a creation of the American railroad system. As its lines grew longer, especially east to west in the expanding nation, rail officials understood that it could not be 10 a.m. in Denver when it was still dark. So time zones were arbitrarily drawn so that 10 a.m. in New York City was 9 a.m. in Chicago, 8 a.m. in Denver, and 7 a.m. in San Francisco. Still, no one was docked so much as a minute in his or her actual time.

 

Putting the subject in longer perspective is this line from a hymn text by Isaac Watts based on Psalm 90:4-5: Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away; they die, forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day.

 

As Homo sapiens evolved, the measurement of time became more deliberate: first by the seasons of the year, then phases of the moon and the ebbing and flowing of tides. Still that was not enough. The Semitic people later called Jews adopted the seven-day cycle of an earlier agricultural society to mark time between Sabbaths. Soon enough, time was told in hours with the first mechanical clocks built in 13th-century Europe to tell remind monastics when to pray the Divine Office.

 

Around the end of the 17th century, when smaller portable clocks called "watches" came into existence, the "minute hand," named for the fraction of the hour, made its appearance, giving the measurement of time yet more precision. I wonder who first said, "Just a minute, please?" Eventually, then came the "second hand" and its fractions of minutes and "In a second, dear."

 

Once in more pious days, I put aside my watch as a personal discipline for Lent and tried to be governed only by the need to complete daily tasks for however long they took without reference to second, minute or hour hand. Abandoning, even for those six weeks, the kind of clock-watching that I for so long had allowed to govern my work life was difficult. I was not supposed to care what time it was but absolutely did.

 

Whence the anxiety to know what time it is? And what if it is around, say, 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time or 1:31 or 1:31:14? I suppose for some kind of exactitude -- perhaps the launching of NASA rockets -- it is deemed necessary to subdivide the second into parts as in 1:31:14:24.

 

Lewis Carroll was uncaring of such a thing when he wrote: "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing-wax -- Of cabbages -- and kings -- And why the sea is boiling hot -- And whether pigs have wings." Time in Carroll's case was, as we would say today, "Whenever."

 

By contrast, the aforementioned railroad industry found it necessary in its earlier days to demand that the operation of its trains be regulated by both exact hour and minute. The operating book of rules of a line once known as the Chicago and West Michigan Railroad put it this way under the heading: "The Standard of Time": The exact time will be telegraphed to all stations at 9 o'clock each morning. The watches of all conductors, engineers must be regulated by this standard. No excuse will be taken for variation of watches.

 

Why? Because before the days of computerized signaling, trains were operated by timetable. A locomotive engineer running his train on the same track as an opposing train had to keep to his appointed schedule so to be able to pull his cars into a sidetrack in time to avoid a collision. According to company rules, the time kept by an engineer's watch could not vary by more than five seconds in a single trip.

 

Here endeth this essay about time. Do enjoy that extra hour of sleep this weekend, but remember that you'll have to give it back come March. Gotta go. Time's a'wastin'.

 

 

 


Copyright 2013 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 

What a Friend They Had in Jesus: The Theological Visions of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Hymn Writers

Have you ever found yourself humming a favorite childhood hymn, only to realize you could no longer embrace its message? Harry Cook explores how hymns reflect the religious beliefs of their times. He revisits the texts of popular hymns, posing such questions as: How true are they to the biblical texts that seem to have inspired them? What aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century piety have persisted into the twenty-first century through the singing of those hymns? And, how does one manage the conflict between the emotional appeal and the theological content of such hymns?

Available at:
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What reviewers said:

 

"Important and heart-warming ... Cook's keen insights into the most familiar of old-time gospel hymns ... help you do theology like a grownup."
--Robin Meyers, author of Saving Jesus from the Church

 

"A compelling look at centuries of Christian theology and practice, at how particular hymns have shaped American faith and religious thought."
--Richard Webster, Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Boston

 

"A call to integrity in worship ... This exciting, penetrating and provocative study explores the theology we sing, which re-enforces the dated and pre-modern theology from which the Christian faith seeks to escape."
--John Shelby Spong, author of Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World


 


Readers Write 
Essay 10/25/13: The Essential Art of Inquiry          

 

William McDonald, Fenton, MI:

After all these years, I realize I've probably never thanked you for your essays.  I'm proud to be on your mailing list.

Elisabeth McGory, Lincoln, NE:

I think that the question about using the bombs in 1945 was answered as it should have been. My cousin lost his life in the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. The A-bombs were the proper answer to that.

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

You are right to expose the danger of adopting easy answers to thorny problems that require deeper analysis and disciplined response. The members of Congress seem unable to free themselves from the thrall of corporate hubris and arrogance. We need higher expectations of our leaders and of ourselves, including healthy skepticism of easy answers to problems that require patience, understanding, and carefully calibrated solutions. The Affordable Care Act is a prime example of a workable solution to a national problem that has become entangled in political gamesmanship and corporate greed.

 

Rusty Hancock, Madison Heights, MI:

Just curious, but I would really like to ask the Australian gentleman who commented last time, what programs have the Republicans supported and passed to enhance our general well-being? Perhaps I'm guilty of thinking only in terms of social equality and trying to create a level playing field for those of lesser economic means, but when I think of the really big efforts to make changes that affect the lives of millions (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA for example), those are the brain children of mainly one party. The very difference between conservative and progressive is that one side wants to conserve what we have (status quo) and the other wishes to push forward, spread out, expand, include, CHANGE. How often have I heard the so-called argument that goes "Don't harm the best health care system in the world by changing it!" which means "it works for me and everyone I know, so get your greedy hands off of it!"

Michael Howard, Palm Springs, CA:

In today's US political environment these are daunting problems and questions. But they could soon be resolved if, starting with the electorate, decisions about government policy were primarily informed by common sense and compassion rather than greed, fear, and ignorance.


Gloria Holzman, Southfield, MI:

Your to-do list and the summary of how to adjust our many misplaced priorities is overwhelming, challenging and necessary. Our country has become commercialism on steroids. Trying to watch a news program, unless it is on PBS, requires we listen to endless commercials hawking drugs with so many serious side effects one would be mad to "ask our doctor" to prescribe them. Couple this with hospitals competing for business, each insisting they and they alone have the answer to perfect outcomes and the lobbying in Washington that buys our Congress and their priorities and we have the perfect storm for the disparities in our society. There is no way to fix all of these imperfections that have arisen like a virus, without some regulations and a new, less partisan Supreme Court and a reordering of the vast military/ industrial complex that has invaded our once ideal society. We are now in the throes of capitalism run amok. How do we stop this train wreck when those in control will never give up their power?

Danny Belrose, Independence, MO: 

I have nothing erudite to add to your thought-provoking article.

Alon Marie, Metamora, MI:

My father taught us as children: "the questions are more important than the answers." You are reminding me of that this morning. That lesson has served me well in my life. It does take one thing that not all of us possess. That one thing is: willingness. It has concerned me of late when I have seen so many congressional leaders, members of certain political groups stand with pride pronouncing that they will not take in new information. That they will not respond to question, let alone ask one, for fear that they will have to change their position, look at something in a new way, or heaven forbid say that the "other side" could have a point. Further, it's a scary time we live in, where those who do question are often seen as unpatriotic.

 

Herman Shields, Beverley Hills, CA:

You're on thin ice with some people on your Hiroshima question, but you are dead right when you say that questions need a lot more work than they get. It is a frequent thing for people to wonder if FDR would have dropped those bombs. He was known as a man who entertained a lot of different opinions in reaching an answer or decision.

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at [email protected].

 


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