Twice-a-year, my mind wanders into a bit of a panic when we move the clocks forward or backward and hour. I’ve had the “time-change” explained to me ever so many times, but I still find myself having to think, “Is it ‘fall back’ or ‘fall forwards,’ etc.” for it is completely reasonable to do either. At some point, I became confident that my phone knew what to do and would do so automatically.
Our phones are clocks.
It was the Church that gave us clocks (of a sort). The word, “clock,” gives it away. It’s origin is from a word meaning a “bell.” And it was the bells in a monastery that signaled the times for prayer. Strictly speaking, in the Middle Ages, it was only the monks who needed to know the “hour” of the day, for they “prayed the hours.” As for the rest of the world, the significant times of the day were obvious. Morning began with sunrise and evening began with sunset. Apart from that, we told time by the work we did. When it became too dark to work, we stopped.
Monasteries, which were almost ubiquitous, served as the “clocks” of communities. When the bells rang their patterns, we knew what “hour” it was. In pious practice, as the bells rang, the monks prayed, and the community paused and prayed as well – shorter prayers, to be sure – but prayers that marked the day.
The “hours” patterned the day in the mode of Christ. The First Hour (6 am) marks daybreak and prays for help in the coming struggles. The Third Hour (9 am) recalls the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:15). The Sixth Hour (Noon) recalls the time of Christ’s Crucifixion. The Ninth Hour (3 PM) recalls the time of Christ’s death on the Cross. As the day ends the Church prays Vespers (“…now that we have come to the setting of the sun, we sing…”).
Mechanical clocks first began appearing in the 13th-14th centuries, in Cathedrals and monasteries, powered by a system of weights and gears. They were “clocks” in that they also powered bells (from Middle English, “clokke” meaning “bell”) that signaled the call to prayer.
The first calendar was the sky itself, as the position of the Sun and the stars marked the passage of the seasons. In ancient lands of every sort, the calendar of the sky became a basis for the development of mathematics. Its orderly procession through the year was also seen as a reflection of a divine order that suffused creation itself. It is creation of the Sun and Moon and stars, day and night, that open the book of Genesis. It is also in that first chapter that we are told of the calendar days, a cycle of seven that set the heartbeat or rhythm of time.
The calendar of the Church reflects both the rhythm of the mystery of faith as well as significant points in the rhythm of nature. Many in the Church are unaware of the days associated with planting and harvest, though they once permeated Western culture. Our urbanized lifestyles have left us alienated from the natural movements of the very planet on which we live, reflecting, instead, the movements of economic cycles – Black Friday as a feast day.
I think we especially like economic cycles in our modern age, in that we imagine it to be something we can manage – warding off down-turns and supply-siding our way to prosperity. Little wonder that we have taken upon ourselves the management of the planet’s climate.
When I write in a manner critical of modernity, I am often understood to be arguing for an abolition of technology and a return to an older, “simpler” time. It is not older and simpler that interests me – it is the recovery and practice of what it means to be truly human that matters. It is possible to be truly human and make use of technology. But it is also important to use it in such a manner that our humanity isn’t compromised.
I take it as a given that to be truly human requires that we embrace the environment in which we live. Animals in a zoo frequently develop aberrant behaviors. Removed and isolated from their natural habitats, they become subject to mental disorders that would not otherwise be seen. Human beings are no different. Though we are easily the most adaptable species on the planet, we are not designed for life in a zoo – even if it is of our own making. We need the land, the air, animals, even the microbes that are a proper part of our environment. Without such things, we begin to become sick. We have become increasingly allergic to the world around us. The drive for an antiseptic world is actually toxic.
The true calendar and time-piece of nature are bringers of health. They teach us about fundamental realities of the world in which we live (and of ourselves). We do well to find ways to engage those realities and to discover their rightful place in our lives.
Converts to Orthodoxy from non-sacramental backgrounds will likely be surprised at how profoundly important the rhythms of the Church calendar and the hours of the day are to the Church’s life. These are not arbitrary impositions, much less requirements for the sake of requirements. They are an effort to call us back to ourselves, to the land and the stars, to the rhythms that have properly shaped human existence from time immemorial.
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:3–9)
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