Monday Morning Musing: Time keepers

There is a shop down the way whose owner loves old clocks. As you might imagine, then, the shop is filled with them. There are majestic grandfathers and tiny tickers and everything in between. A couple of years ago I bought a clock from this shop that I was especially drawn to - it is simple with a lovely shape and an even lovelier sound. When I brought it home, though, it didn't chime for very long and after several failed attempts to revive it, I left it as a decorative piece.

A couple of weeks ago my Beloved moved the clock and when he returned in to its place, it began to chime. He wound it and set it and lo and behold, it now sings out on every quarter hour and its tick, tock, counts the seconds that turn to minutes that turn to hours.

The only explanation we can imagine is that the clock where it originally sat was not where it was supposed to be. That it wasn't level or that somehow something stood in the way of it marking time as it was created to do.

Mary Oliver writes beautifully in many of her poems about our wise use of time. But many years before her, Marcus Aurelius did the same. I especially value this quote for the blunt way it calls out how I think I have all the time in the world ahead of me, when in truth, this day is all I can be sure of. This moment. This second, tick-tocking out of the clock that has suddenly found its voice again.

Remember how long you have procrastinated, and how consistently you have failed to put to good use your suspended sentence from the gods. It is about time you realized the nature of the universe of which you are part and of the power that rules it to which your part owes its existence. Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.