Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8b
Sigh…it happened again. Well, twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, they do it. They are whoever is in charge and the what is messing with our clocks and minds. They call it “daylight savings time” or DST but they ought to call it “time to mess with your mind.” You know the drill. On the second Sunday of March they (whoever they are) tell us to set our clocks forward one hour. That means several things. First, it means no matter what you try and do you are going to lose an hour of sleep. It also means that just when sunrise was going to occur at a decent hour, it doesn’t. And finally, it also means that a bunch of people are either late for church or miss it entirely. Like I said, “Sigh.”
Part two of all of this occurs in the fall…in November. It used to be in October but to further confuse everyone they moved it to November. Now I must admit that coming off of DST is easier than going on. In the fall, we gain an hour of sleep though by this time we are so used to the new time, the old time seems more like a nasty neighbor than an old friend. I know, I know—we have more daylight in the evening with DST and besides all that—who gets up that early anyway? Pause. I’m raising my hand.
Oh, and then there is the other deal. I know I’m a bit different, but I have a zillion clocks in my house and each one must be reset when the time changes. Now this is when springing forward (that is supposed to make the losing an hour of sleep more fun) is better than falling back. The bottom line is it is easier to move the hands forward one hour than to stop each clock and then wait for the old time to catch up with the new. I think we might just be better if they would just make up their minds one way or the other and leave things alone.
I was watching the Weather Channel Saturday morning before “time to mess with your mind” day and they did a feature on what happens when you disrupt people’s sleep. Well, they had this expert lady on the show, and she flat out said all this clock changing is a bad idea. She said it can cause several kinds of social disruptions including car accidents and other end of the world scenarios. Well, she didn’t actually say that part, but I thought I would add it in. But I think we do need to make up our minds and let that sleeping dog lie. And speaking of sleeping dogs, I wonder if DST messes with them too. She did say it affected pets. Hmmm.
Well, there is a lesson mixed up in all of this. While it is true when changing the time on our clocks, it is definitely true in life too. Moving forward in life is always better than falling back…you know, falling back into bad habits…falling back into bad relationships…falling back into bad attitudes…well, you get the idea. As we do life, we need to intentionally choose to move forward. If you have one of those older clocks that still has hands, there is usually a small knob on the back. To move the hands forward, you simply turn that knob. To move life forward, we simply need to keep making the next right decision.
That also means to keep doing what we have been doing that was moving us in the right direction. That might include restarting good habits, reestablishing good relationships, and thinking about how we think. Minding our mind is one of the best habits we can have. Paul, the guy in the Bible, said so in a letter he wrote to the folks in Philippi. He said, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Boom…what great advice.
Well, since I am writing this on Sunday, the day we changed the time, I think I will probably go and take a nap and try to catch up on that hour of sleep. Now that the first “time to mess with your mind” day is over, I have 239 days till the next one. But, hey, who is counting? Smile. I’m sure glad my Dearest Daddy doesn’t do this “mess with your mind” thing. He is steady like clockwork—no pun intended. Don’t worry…He’s got this. Bro. Dewayne
Grits with Grace 