Post #15 of 40
Giving Up An Hour
The time changed last night.
I didn’t spring forward, though. I crawled.
This whole idea of changing times irritates me. For several years, I kept my inner time the same all year long. My morning alarm would be set for 4:30am during one time period and 5:30am the other time. The idea of not changing my inner waking time came to me when I was in Abu Dhabi and had to rethink my concept of weekdays and weekends. I worked Sunday through Thursday, and Friday and Saturday were the weekend days.
I didn’t attend church regularly while in the UAE, although there were several active churches within a twenty-minute drive. The main services were on Friday. During November of that year, a work-free holiday landed on a Sunday, and an American colleague and I ventured to the Anglican church for a small weekly service usually attended by stay-at-home spouses of expats from the UK. Andy, the priest, told us that most of the Americans attended the Evangelical church. At coffee hour, Andy’s sense of humor was showing, so with a smile on my face, I asked, "Do you think God minds if we worship on Friday instead of Sunday?"
Without a beat, he said, "God wants us to worship any day and every day. And, if we're going to get technical about it, we should be worshipping on Saturday."
I continue to find time and days of the week fun to ponder. Read Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman if you want to join me in my pondering.
And, at the end of this post, you’ll find a Spotify playlist I put together - revealing my ongoing fascination with time!
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Tom and I live a pretty calm life compared to others, I think. We rarely stay out late at night anymore, but seeing friends and family or listening to live musicians will lure us to stay up past our bedtimes. Last night, we traveled an hour to Worcester to hear Elizabeth’s partner, Matt Vezey, play trombone with the Worcester Symphony Orchestra in Mechanic’s Hall.
The four hours of sleep we got last night between getting home from the concert and waking to get Tom to the airport were not quite enough. Tom made it to Tennessee, and I taught church school for boys and girls who were also tired. The lesson about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well was in today’s Lectionary, and we talked about the literal water that quenches our thirst and the way that Jesus is our living water hydrating our souls and our lives. The symbolism may have been beyond our bleary eyed kids and their teacher.
When I got home and quenched my literal thirst with some iced tea, I tried to think of what I had gained by giving up that hour, and I don’t see the advantage today - maybe tonight.
As someone who tends to be rigid about my nighttime routine, I am thankful that I got out of my comfort zone and heard live music in a beautiful location with people I love. Matt is family to us, and giving up an hour or more of sleep is what we do whenever we have the chance to honor and celebrate family.
And, while God may quench our spiritual thirst,
music and the love of family and friends
provide balm to my tired body,
after giving up that hour.
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This afternoon, I began to think of a Mary Oliver poem named, “Thirst.” I hope you enjoy it.