tick, tock...

In most homes, time creeps through on silent cat feet, delivered up digitally with only blinking to mark its passage. In our home, time clunks through in work boots with the ticking of an old wall clock with Westminster chimes. It was part of our first furniture purchase... an old, round, oak table with six chairs, a secretary and the clock... all bought for the grand sum of three hundred dollars thirty nine years ago in Waco, Texas.
As we have moved from state to state, job to job, home to home, the clock was always the first thing we unpacked. It is a simple wooden rectangle, no frills or furbelows, leaded beveled glass below with a plain metal face above, beautiful in its simplicity. It requires attention and must be wound every week. It must be hung level so the pendulum will swing evenly to prevent time from staggering to a halt. Every ten or fifteen years it goes to the shop for maintenance and returns home as good as new. Every quarter hour and hour, the voice of the clock sings out reminding us of times passing.
I love the sweet sound of the old clock’s voice. I pause and listen as the full song rings out at the top of the hour and sing along. The clock’s song reminds me of my life’s song composed in small passages of time, each note marking the gift of life which I have been given. The nagging writer of Ecclesiastes says “I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those who have skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For men and women do not know their time.”
Our old clock has helped me know my time.
When I sit in the living room, close my eyes and listen to the tick tock voice, I remember and hear my past... our young voices in our first home, having friends over, bringing our first child home, family visiting (it is Tuesday... it must be time for Pitts to come.), Dulci barking, laughter and tears... our children growing, getting up to go to school, checking the clock to see if we are late as we dash out the door... giggles and wails of childhood marked by the punctuation of the clock’s timekeeping...every Sunday morning, all dressed up in our Sunday best, walking out the door going to church, checking to see how late we are...time seeming to stop as we heard word of death’s passage through our lives, friends, sister, mother, father...children leave home and silence descends as the furious rush of growing up fades into college, marriage and adulthood... the old clock seems louder in the quiet... I sit and remember and give thanks. I do know my time and it has been a good gift. My time is not gathered up in a bottle but an open, overflowing cup, full of good and evil, laughter and tears, friends and family, bane and blessing. I am looking carefully as I walk, trying to walk as a wise one, making the most of my time, heeding the call in Ephesians to awake and search for the light which comes from Christ. Thanks be to God for old clocks with sweet chimes to remind me of the gift of time.