time...

i once watched a documentary on the inner workings of Buckingham palace. i guess i was thinking about it here lately because we had the time change, but there is a man who works for the royal palace who's official job is taking care of the palace's some 350 clocks.

every week he is in charge of making sure that the clocks are all in working order, and that each clock is wound and is keeping the correct time. pretty tedious and time consuming work on a daily basis caring for so many antique machines, but twice a year his job becomes even more consuming. during daylight savings time it is his sole job to change by hand all of these clocks.

he starts in the early morning and begins the routine that has been passed down through the centuries of tradition at the palace. everything the royal family does and everything that takes place inside the castle is steeped in tradition. everything must be done just right, and so even the changing of the clocks has an order and a certain procession about it.

it takes him all day to work in all of the rooms and all of the buildings that are a part of the palace. he cares for these instruments and resets them one by one.

one of the last clocks on his list is an old timed bell that hangs in one of the old towers. he commented on the documentary that every time the task must done, he tries to hurry and be almost finished, down to this one last clock to reset, before the sun goes down. the old mechanism hangs inside the tower way up high on the wall and there is no good light in the tower. he must stand on a chair and reach up high to change the timer and if it is already nightfall, it can be a scary job, he remarked to the film maker, to be all alone, standing on a chair, in the dark, in an old tower. it kind of makes me chuckle to think that as i set my clocks forward the other night, somewhere in London a man was setting a clock praying for just a little more moon light in a tower.

and then i got to thinking. what passion this guy has for clocks! i looked it up and found out that he is what you call a horologist. it comes from the Greek word for hour and is defined as one who studies time. and while it is associated with those who have studied the actual passing of time, it also is commonly used to refer to watchmakers and time keepers and those who devote their lives to the management of these time keeping machines.

time.

this thought about this man in his tower in London got me thinking in several directions.

first i was thinking about how devoted this guy is to what he does. what passion for clocks! for time keeping. i was consumed for days by the thought that i am not that passionate about anything. to work so steadfastly and so commit ed to a task, even just two days a year, is a lot when you really think about it. you figure he spends just two minutes with each clock. that's 700 minutes. almost 12 full hours to get the job done. when was the last time i worked a twelve hour day with no breaks doing the same tedious job over and over. for most of us the answer is not very often.

and to me, it kind of seems like, is it that important, really? i mean so what if the some of the antique clocks are just for show and don't keep working time, or cant the job be stretched out over a week or at least a couple of days? but i guess that is where passion comes in to play. i don't have a passion for these old clocks, but this guy does, and for him, its worth it.

i have a hard time even doing anything for twelve minutes without getting distracted. as Christians we are supposed to be sold out passionate for Christ, and yet when was the last time i prayed even for a full twelve minutes without being distracted by myself? thoughts about grocery lists, about the work that i have to do tomorrow, about my own selfish desires so quickly creep in. when was the last time i devoted twelve minutes, much less, twelve hours, completely to God?

then i got to thinking what would the world look like, what would Mississippi or even my little county look like if we were passionate, truly passionate, even for two days out of every year, even for just twelve hours,about the sole purpose of living for God? how many good things could be accomplished, how many souls could be won, if even for one day we all stopped talking about how passionate we are and devoted our actions to actually doing something about it?

time.

the more i thought about time and this old man and his clocks the more i thought about the passage of time in my own life. about time in general. you might say i have been a bit of a horologist lately as i have studied in my own mind my time; my time here on earth thus far, the seasons that have passed, the people and things that have passed along with it.

its such a precious thing, and yet i waste it so often.

what am i doing most of the time?

so few things are eternal and i waste so much energy on the fleeting.

i guess this is the modern day plight of western civilization. we talk so much about waste. wasted energy, wasted space, where to put all of our waste! but i don't think often enough about the time i let slip by me with no work put into it that will have a lasting effect.

its easy to come up with excuses, its hard sometimes to just do whatever it is that we are being called by the lord to do.

lately i have had this phrase stuck in my mind: if it was easy, it wouldn't require a sacrifice.

i think as we draw near to the hour of the passing of our Lord and to the three days which must have seemed to pass the most slowly in history, it is fitting to remember the sacrifice that was made. not just of the blood that was shed on Calvary, but the sacrifice that Gods Son made to leave His throne in heaven where there is no time, where a day is like a thousand years, and to come to this lowly planet a babe in a manger to work among us a carpenter's son in the passing seasons of time.

He lived among us as a creature of time and yet He transcended time.(John 1:1,14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.)

in the passing seasons He watched the leaves turn green again, delighted as the birds nests filled with spring eggs, smiled as the flowers bloomed and still He knew, year after year, with the passage of time, as He grew to be a man, what springtime would ultimately bring Him. would bring all of us.

time.

a friend was talking the other day about Ecclesiastes and reminded me about what it says about time. how there is a time for everything under the sun. i think tonight as i write, that there is a also a time for everything under the Son. because of His sacrifice to be like us, to show us how our lives should be lived, there is really no excuse. when we come to the end of our lives, all the wasted time, will be just that. only the things that we were passionate about will live on.

someone will be groomed to care for the old man's clocks when he is gone. its a tradition that has been passed down for generations and that will continue i am sure. its frivolous, yes, but it will live on as long as some one is passionate about it.

what will be carried on because of me?

what will i have done under the Son, that will truly matter?

and the greatest of these...

I'm trying to teach madilynn about love.

we talked a few weeks ago about feelings and emotions and so i thought that it was appropriate to share with her that despite what the world might say, love does not fall into this same category with our sadness, happiness, anger etc..

this is hard to explain to a five year old.

in her mind she can not understand how it is possible to be angry at her brother and still love him at the same time.

its a hard concept even for most adults.

when i taught high school bible at hillcrest i taught my kids that the definition of love meant making yourself vulnerable to pain. they thought that i was a super emo crazy person who did not understand love. how could something that they associated so closely with all the butterflies and happy feelings they felt fit in anyway with my definition?

in preparation for talking to madilynn i was watching the brandon heath video for his love never fails song. i have heard it on the radio but for some reason watching the images and seeing the lyrics as he sang, it really hit home. 1 cor 13 is probably simultaneously one of the single most important and hardest chapters in all of the Bible.

i have laughed lately at my little one year old's joys in his discovery of being upside down. he can not get up on my lap now that he does not immediately take a dive backwards of of my lap letting his long blond curls touch the floor as he squeals with delight. madilynn and ben usually get in on the act too. they flip over off the side of the couch and as the blood rushes to their heads they all laugh and laugh at the sight of each other turned in this peculiar way.

i have thought what is it about being upside down that is so appealing? the rush of blood, the fear of falling, the strangeness of seeing others completely opposite of how you normally see them.

it has struck me that the same is true for love. real love.

carrie bradshaw in the final episode of sex and the city tells the russian "i am someone who is looking for love. real love. ridiculous. inconvenient. consuming. cant live without each other love." i have clung to that statement these last few years but as i think on it now, i think that even that proclamation falls short.

sometimes you do live without, and yet you still love.

i remember my sweet mimi telling me as she watched our dandy, her tony, slip away that you would think after fifty seven years with him that would be enough, but still she felt she needed more time. she tells me every time i see her now that even after all these years that he has been gone, she dreams of him. sometimes you do live without, and yet you still love.

i remember the tears in my sweet daddy dukes eyes as he gave me my mamal's ring and said that when the nurse told him she would go and remove the jewelry from her body, he politely told her that he was the one who put those rings on her sweet fingers and he would be the one to take them off. i have only worn that ring once. to a wedding a few summers ago. sometimes you live without, and yet you still love.

daddy talked in his sermon on sunday about a friend he knows who recently ran into the man who his wife had had an affair with. the man who had been like his brother. the man who he had laughed with. who he had cried with. who he had hated. daddy said when he heard the news that the two had run into each other for the first time since the affair happened and since his wife had left him he braced himself for what he was about to hear. what words had been exchanged? had punches even been thrown?
what he heard instead turned his world upside down. his friend had walked up to the man whom the world would have called his enemy, put his arms around him and said, "brother, i just want you to know that i still love you."

how can you explain love to a five year old? i guess the best way is to show it.to try to live it out everyday. otherwise, even if you memorize 1 cor 13, they are still just words. and isn't that what the passage is trying to say, afterall?

i think the only reason that daddy's friend was able to do what he did is because love has been lived out so clearly in his own life. by his parents. by his grandparents. by his Lord.

isn't that after all what we always say Christ did? turn the world upside down with his love. love for the prostitutes, the beggars, the outcasts, the sinners.

i can only imagine that as peter took a timid dive off the side of that boat toward Jesus the blood must have rushed to his head. the fear of falling must have been unbelievable. strange and surreal and thrilling and terrifying, all at the same time. but as long as he kept his eyes on his Lord, he walked on the water. i know that the experience that day and the rest of his days with (and without) the Lord changed him. Turned his whole world upside down. i am struck by the thought that he died, by choice, in this same manner.

what is love?

am i qualified to teach anyone about it?

maybe not, but Lord help me, I'm trying to live it out daily.

Brandon Heath--
Love Never Fails :
Love is not proud
Love does not boast
Love after all
Matters the most

Love does not run
Love does not hide
Love does not keep
Locked inside

Love is the river that flows through
Love never fails you

Love will sustain
Love will provide
Love will not cease
At the end of time

Love will protect
Love always hopes
Love still believes
When you don’t

Love is the arms that are holding you
Love never fails you

When my heart won’t make a sound
When I can’t turn back around
When the sky is falling down
Nothing is greater than this
Greater than this

Love is right here
Love is alive
Love is the way
The truth the life

Love is the river than flows through
Love is the arms that are holding you
Love is the place you will fly to
Love never fails you

from a southern mississippi gal to a southern california guy...

Dear Jason Schwartzman,

I have this novel in my head. I started out writing it five years ago when I was thinking a lot about Salinger and the family dynamic. I created these characters and this plot just sort of emerged but I can’t seem to get it out onto the page. I’ve got these really great moments. These places where if I say so myself its pure brilliance. But as someone I once knew said, I’m tired of living life in these same old short stories.

Its nothing really. I mean its just life. And more and more as I write it I realize that its my life.

I recently decided to change it all to first person. Is the Catcher in the Rye first person or was Salinger just so good at third person that it seemed that way? I can’t recall, anyway the point is I’m no Salinger and apparently I live life so much better in my head than I do in the real world or on the written page.

The working title is Welcome to Fiction. A play on the fact that the main protagonist is using the English degree he earned from his state university to work in the fiction section of the local library. Like, virtually nothing happens. I think that’s the problem, except, that is not entirely true because this whole year goes by in his life and lots of things happen. I just mean that there are no big explosions or fireworks or car chases. There is not even a good love scene or this great romance, and the thing is, I think that, strangely, this is all as it should be.

I don’t want it to be about just anything. I want it to be about the nothings of everyday life and about everything. About how our generation doesn’t have this driving force like the depression WW2 era did, or like the hippie Veitnam era did. I mean we have the war on terror and the recession but somehow still most of us as 20 and 30 somethings are so far removed from all of that. Not that we mean to be, not that we don’t care, just, what does that really look like to care? I mean we recycle, we voted for Obama, but on a day to day basis what has our fancy private school education and our degree done for us that drives us to a more fulfilling existance?

Generation X or whatever you wanna call it. Its this big joke and yet no one that I know is really laughing. Most people I know, if you asked them, and they were really honest, would say that they are kind of depressed. That they have become insomniacs because they can’t seem to turn the tv off, put down the controller, or stop checking face book on their I phone. Scared that the silence might cause them to start to really think and that thinking might open up a whole world that they have so neatly tucked away. They have become loners because becoming the socialite has become what Paris Hilton and Lauren Conrad are and if we learned anything from our days as twothirtyeight, jimmy eat world junkies its that life is better lived in the mind. We have become dreamers but only to the extent that it gets us through the day to day because life long goals seem too far off and everything we dreamed as fifteen year olds somehow failed along the way. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe everything has slowed down. Or sped up. Which ever way we can’t seem to get on or off the train, or whatever, cause where is anybody really going?

Anyway, thats the way my protagonist feels.

I’m really not cynical. I’m actually a fairly pleasant person, most days. I think that its just hard for me to think about what the great american novel looks like for our generation because I don’t know how our generation is going to achieve the great american dream. I think that we will achieve it, one day. It just may take us a little longer.It just might not look like the same dream our parents and grandparents achieved. It might not even look like the same dream we once thought we would achieve. But, for better or for worse, maybe we will reach it. eventually.

And maybe that’s why its taking so long for me to get my book finished. Maybe that’s why I keep putting it down, picking it back up and starting it over again.

Maybe I need to stop listening to death cab radio on Pandora as I write. Maybe the melodic tunes that I claim as inspiration are lulling me to be stagnant.

Maybe if I could get it out of my head that what I was writing was a Wes Anderson screenplay, if I could stop thinking of the protagonist as Luke Wilson then I could just really concentrate on seeing him as himself. As me.

Maybe if my own chapters would close a little more triumphantly.

Maybe.

Anyway, I write to you, because I think you might understand. Because I think you might know how it feels to have this river inside of you the size of the Mississippi, but unlike me, you seem to have somehow learned how to release it…


--jayna lea