Wayne's World: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

by Wayne Geiger

I’m probably dating myself with the title of the article. If you sang along, you probably did too. The song is by the rock band, Chicago, who released it in 1969. The next line, of course, goes, “does anybody really care?” The answer to the second line of the song, is “yes, we do care what time it is.”

In America, we are very timeconscious. Like a sail propelled by strong gusts, we are driven by impending deadlines and the ever-ticking clock.

The clock dictates to us when we should get up, when we should eat, when we need to pick up the kids at school, when we need to be at work—it is all driven by the clock.

Time is so critical that most of us value time over money. We trade cash for convenience. We like drive-throughs, groceries delivered to our door, the carwash, and people to do our lawn. We need to save time.

Interestingly, that’s not the case in every culture. If you have ever visited a country that is not time-conscious, it can be very confusing and frustrating. Some countries simply do not have our concept of time. To them, time is more ethereal and suggestive rather than concrete and descriptive.

I remember being on a mission trip in Mexico several years ago. We stayed at a remote village located high atop a mountain. This village had no electricity, no running water, and no modern conveniences.

Our worship team had planned an event for the folks in the village which was to start at 1:00pm—right after lunch. We spread the word in the village, and our team synchronized our watches. At the designated time, however, no one was there. I was extremely confused.

The pastor of the local church was not concerned and told us that people would come. He also reminded us that people in the village did not own clocks. I was shocked and asked, “how will they know when to come?” He said simply, “they will come.”

“How will we know when to start?” I pleaded. “We’ll start when everybody gets here,” was his reply.

Time is a tricky thing. Humans did not invent time, but we did invent the clock and the calendar. God provided humans with several “large” indicators of time like the day, a seven-day week, and four seasons. Apparently, He thought that was good enough.

However, these large indicators of time were inadequate and would not suffice. After all, humans are very inquisitive and have a strong desire to control our surroundings. We needed to control time. So, mankind worked at trying to evaluate and systematize time.

A study in the progression of timekeeping devices is long and time consuming, but if you’ve got a second, here’s the gist. We have two main devices to measure time: the calendar and the clock. They are inextricably linked.

The calendar has a long, convoluted history. About five thousand years ago, the Sumerians, using the stars, produced a calendar that divided the year into twelve months of thirty days each. They also subdivided the day into twelve increments of time (two hours blocks). Pretty close—but no cigar.

About 3100 B.C., the Egyptians realized that the "Dog Star" (Sirius), appeared next to the sun every 365 days. Getting warmer. Although humans leaped for joy, over time, we realized it was necessary to add a leap year every four years.

Our modern-day calendaring system is based upon the Gregorian calendar. Our current year is 2019. So, it stands to reason that we have progressed 2019 years from a static starting point.

The historical starting event is the birth of Christ—A.D. “Anno Domini” which is Latin for “in the year of our Lord”. There is no “0” on the calendar. It goes from 1 BC to 1 AD skipping zero.

There are two main problems with the calendaring system. First, the Gregorian calendar was off a smidge. The error was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus who miscalculated the birth of Christ.

Scholars believe the actual birth of Jesus was actually somewhere between 6-4 BC, but never readjusted the calendar. No wonder they give out those things for free—they’re all wrong.

As far as the clock is concerned, sundials were first used about 5000 years ago. Then, as history progressed, about twenty-five hundred years later there were water clocks, then weights, and then springs. Pendulum clocks began to appear in the 17 th century. By the 13th century, modern mechanical clocks, which worked by falling weights, appeared.

Then came the division of the hour into 60 minutes and the minute was further subdivided into 60 seconds and so on. In our atomic age, time is coordinated at an international level using atomic clocks. Whew! I’m done with the brief history of clocks. I know what you’re thinking. “It’s about time.”

Mankind prevailed! We were finally able to measure and control time. After all, it’s about control. We as humans understand that whatever can be evaluated and measured can be manipulated and possibly controlled.

We were able to put time in a bottle and cap the lid on. We now hold it hostage on our mobile devices and proudly display timekeeping devices on our wrist.

But maybe you’ve noticed the amazing irony. We, who thought that we could control and manipulate time, have actually found ourselves to be slaves to time. The human architect has become a slave to the instrument. Our devices have become our demise.

In our desire to create an organized, structured, logical existence, we have found that we are enslaved to the clock controlled by our schedules. We have great technology, but no time. We have tremendous accuracy but no flexibility. And time marches on.

The reason you are always running from one thing to another, exasperated and say, “I just don’t have enough time” is because you only thought you had time. You don’t have time. Rather, time has you. Think about that for a minute.

Wayne Geiger is the Pastor of First Baptist Church Grain Valley, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Speech at Johnson Country Community College, and a freelance writer.