Speak to the king within the man...

I’m not really a fan of sentimental books, but I read one a few years ago that had a real pearl of wisdom nestled in some dialogue in the middle of the book. More than the story itself, this exchange between two characters is what I remember most.

The book is called ‘The Timepiece’ by Richard Paul Evens. It’s a story about a man who has a fascination with clocks, anywhere from pocket watches to grandfather clocks. I’ll leave out any more details surrounding the story in case you want to read it. For a good half the book we really don’t understand why he has this love for the ticker, but in the following exchange with his new bride, he explains his fascination. This is the pearl of wisdom that I speak.

“May I tell you why I wanted to give you a clock?”

She turned to her groom. “There is greater significance than its beauty?”

David stared into the clocks face. “You once asked me why I collect clocks.”

MaryAnne nodded.

“I have given this question a great deal of thought since then. A clock is a strange invention. A collection of cogs and gears that are always in motion, yet accomplish nothing. Not like a pump that provides water, or a cotton gin that leaves something useful. A clock just moves without thought or meaning - - worthless without interpretation.” His eyes focused on the clock in condemnation. “It’s just motion.”

I’ll stop there because the rest gets mushy as he explains how his life was so much like a clock, just movement without meaning. That is until she came along.

Let me expound a little bit on the clock. Isn’t it amazing how the world is run completely by the clock? Every aspect of our lives is dictated by the ticker. We wake up when it tells us to, we go to work, lunch and home when it tells us to. We experience anxiety if it tells us we’re late. We feel at peace if it tells us we have a few minutes to spare. By all accounts we live by it. Yet, it’s not the clock that runs us; after all it’s just a mechanical instrument with perpetually moving parts. It is our interpretation of the object that controls us.

Maybe this struck me so hard because of my profession. It is very easy to see a business much like a clock. It has a bunch of moving parts, like employee’s making sales, costumers buying products, systems managing inventory, billing systems sending payments out, payment systems accepting payments. These are all just pieces of a business that feed their information into large databases. It is my job to extract that data and present it to executives in a way that they can apply their own interpretation to understand how their business is doing. Are they making money? What products are selling best? What types of customers are late with payments? This is business intelligence which is the field in which I work.

On a deeper level, and more to the point of the book, the clock relates to man. We are sent to this earth to gain a body. A body is a compilation of heart, bones, skin, nerves, blood and many other organs working in unison to provide our spirits with a vehicle to exist here on earth. It is what we do with ourselves while here that provide others with the interpretation of who we are. Are we wasting our opportunity? Are we doing everything we can to emulate the Savior? Do others see the Savior in us, or do others see us as judgmental, unethical, dishonest, or anything other than what we wish them to see?

I used to work in downtown phoenix and would see many of the city’s homeless on a regular basis. On one occasion while walking from the parking structure to my office, I saw a man who was so emaciated that it was a shock to see him upright. He wore a pair of ripped jeans that hung way below his hips. He was shirtless and shoeless. His skin was like leather and his eyes were deep behind his cheek bones. His face was lifeless as he sauntered toward me. With one hand, he held up his pants. With the other he held an empty plastic cup. I would bet that my interpretation of him at that moment was a far cry from what he wanted for himself at better times in his life.

As I walked by, I tried to get his attention with my gaze, but he would not make eye contact. I had a five in my pocket so I pulled it out and placed it in his cup. He didn’t say anything and barely acknowledged my existence. He was too tired to even nod. The mechanical pieces of his body were slowing down. His clock was breaking. It was almost as if he wasn’t going to live long enough to spend those five dollars. I thought about him that entire day and an awful lot since. I wondered what went wrong in his life. What led him to such a low point? In all likelihood he would die on a street with no one around him. No one would even know he had passed until well after, and who’s to say they would even care? This is a sad case of the gift of life being tossed away like a bad gallon of milk.

Many people end up this way through a series of bad choices, whether it is drugs and alcohol, or crime. Some get there through very little fault of their own, as mental illness or a pitiful childhood can be the culprit. If you’re like me and can say you have been given very favorable circumstances in life and a fine hand dealt your way, make the most of it. Lift others. Serve man. Love your family. Who are we to squander such a powerful opportunity to be the best we can?

We have free agency, the most powerful of all gifts. It gives us complete control to say and do as we wish. And back to time, as a friend of mine recently said, it is all we really, truly own.



On a side note, for mother’s day I decided to send Nik, her sister and her mother to a resort for the night. I checked Travelocity and found the Mesa Golf Resort for a relatively low price. The website said it was a four star, so I thought ‘hey, for that price, I’ll take it.’ Besides, it was close to home. Well, my friends, it was a dive. I guess everything was outdated, the bedding was dirty, it smelled, the carpet with filthy, not at all what I expected from a four star. So, of all the things Nik could have taken a picture of for proof of its subpar status, she chose to take a picture of the clock. Strange, I know. The picture above is the one she took. There has to be some relationship between the topic of this post and that picture, but I’ll leave that one alone. Just too deep for me.

Take a look at this. This is very telling on how Obama wants to reshape America. When you hear words like marxist in connection with Obama, you have to at the very least be a little concerned, even if you are a supporter. Find out for yourself why some of the brightest minds in our country fear this man. Dont be fooled by charisma.