Clocks

March 13, 2020

Occasionally, Linda tells about her grandfather who collected cuckoo clocks. When she was a little girl the family occasionally visited his farm in Conewango. He always complied when the girls begged him to wind all the clocks. Her grandmother was never too pleased when fifty cuckoo clocks began to chime, one after another. Sadly, he died when she was young, and no one seems to know what happened to all those clocks. 

I like old clocks. You can have your electric hummers; give me an old windup any day. The steady tick-tock is soothing to me. Every so often an old clock has to be adjusted; they’re persnickety. They don’t necessarily keep the best time, and don’t automatically adjust for Daylight Savings like my phone. I go from room to room through the house every week, winding them up and adjusting their movements. If we weren’t a bit shy of wall, mantle, or floor space, I would have more. Just the other day, I managed to snag a beautiful old wall clock for our bedroom, but may need to figure out how to mute the hourly chime if we want to sleep through the night.

When I was a kid, we had Vacation Bible School at our church for two weeks every summer. I was no more than eleven this one particular summer; our class was in the balcony where it was stiflingly hot. I don’t remember the specifics of the lesson, but I do remember the memory verse we learned: “My times are in thy hand” (Ps. 31:15). We made little pretend clocks as a craft project. Why that memory sticks with me, I don’t know, but I do know the comfort I’ve experienced in the assurance that my life is in God’s hands. As St. Paul said, 

“For me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live.” —Philippians 1:21-24 NLT

I watch people get all worked up over this coronavirus and am thankful that even though I am an older adult—one of those most at risk, I have no worries. I’d like to claim that I have no frets because I play the string bass, but really it’s because I know my life is hid with Christ in God. 

When one is young, time seems to stretch on forever, but the older I get, the horizon looms ever closer. These old clocks remind me of simpler, slower times when one had to regularly maintain stuff with routines like my winding of the clocks. They remind me of my mortality—that life is precious; every tick-tock, every chime marks something I will never get back. I am much more careful to invest time wisely; I don’t tolerate fools as easily as once I did. To keep things running requires attention, sometimes tediously. The constant ticking on the wall makes me aware that each moment is valuable, so I choose carefully how I will invest it. In a time when we have become addicted to our electronic devices, I work at resisting the pull of the screen. I’ve often told our grandchildren that they’ll never look back on these days and say, “Remember that day we stared at our phones?” But they will remember the times we sat around the table talking about what was the best thing that happened that day, or the laughter as we played games together.

Maybe I like old clocks simply because they are old, like me. Like my clocks, I need tending to more than I used to, but so far, I keep ticking. Some day, the pendulum will stand still; the hands will no longer glide around the face. When that day comes, Christ my Savior will wind me up one last time, and I will chime his praises for eternity.