My grandfather clock, the passing of time, and the consequence of actions.

Last night I couldn't sleep so I spent a few moments watching the grandfather clock that sits by my front door.  It's been in the same spot more or less in all five places that I've lived.  It was ticking away when my parents brought me home from the hospital. It was ticking away for the each and every first day of school. It's seen me happy and sad.  It's watched me laugh and it's watched me cry.  It's watched me come home after great successes and triumphs.  It watched as I once almost put my head through it after a counter productive night at the bar shortly after my 21st birthday.  It's watched me come home full of despair after failing myself and others.   I'd run passed the clock to greet my dad when he would return from any given long trip in the big 747.  It watched me trudge through the front door after my grandmother's funeral.  It saw the smile on my face and my confident stride when I found greatness beyond my comprehension.  It observed the guilt on my face when I made the biggest mistake of my life.  It hasn't ever told me anything; it hasn't judged me.   It saw me last night, however I am now, observing it.

Throughout my life the clock has done one thing -- ticked.  The hands have moved forward.  It's stopped sometimes when I've forgotten to wind it.  It's never moved backwards (except when I have to push the hands out of the way of the winding holes but we won't really count that).  Time moves forward without exception. One must understand that given a finite amount of ticks, it is imperative to use them wisely.  As soon as each one passes there is no way to get it back.  The actions one takes during a few ticks will set the scene for the future.  They are not independent.  I, like most of I suppose, wish that it wasn't a linear path forward from tick to tick.  If we were able to sail on time, we would be able to do many things -- put a year's worth of action into a single tick, alter passed ticks, cruise to the future.  We know that we can't do this. We can't go back in time.  I would give anything to be able to be able to spin the hands on my grandfather clock back a few weeks and see the time reverse.  I can't.  We do good things, we do bad things.  Everybody makes mistakes, some bigger than others.  I think that one of the defining qualities in the integrity of a man is the ability to live with mistakes.  It's not easy.  Sometimes we do things that keep us up at night.  Things we may never forgive ourselves for.  Impulses made in a few ticks, in the heat of the moment, in fear, in frustration.  Once actions are made, once the clock ticks, there is no way to go back.  The good thing is that there are, hopefully, many more ticks to come in life.  There is no definition to those ticks yet.  Anything can happen in that time.  The best thing we can do is to try our best to control what we do in those ticks and let everything else fall into place.  Ultimately we only have control of our time sphere.  Its foolish to expect any more.  But, friends, that means that we are all so very responsible for our actions.  After our actions, we lose responsibility.  We can only hope that we've done right. We cannot deny what we've done.  We can only try to do the right thing going forward.  It isn't always easy but it is all that we can do.

Once, my grandfather clock stopped working.  At first it seemed to chime at the wrong times, things  progressed and then it finally stopped working.  We had to get a clock guy in to work on our grandfather clock.  He had to open up its insides and clean out the grime that had built up over 20 or so years. Isn't our life like that?  A clock is useless to man if it doesn't run.  Without its insides being in prime working condition,  it can't help others.  When we have problems, when we have grime built up inside of us, we become incapable of really sharing with others.  It's easy to fall into these pits.  In a fast paced, judgmental society it is often difficult to share our problems.  We hold them in, hanging on in quiet desperation.  This isn't healthy.  We become black clouds, wasting our precious ticks and hurting those who love us.  It is so very important that we look inside and purge ourselves of our problems so that we do not let them ooze out and affect our loved ones.  When we've messed up, large or small, the first place we need to look is inside.  It isn't right, or fair to yell and scream our problems to others until we've searched ourselves -- fixed ourselves.  True, it may often require the help of others to do this, but that first step is look for the grime inside of ourselves.   No matter how it got there, it is ours, our decisions are ours, and we must accept this responsibility.  Nobody else can spend our ticks, nobody can get them back for us.  Therefore we must clean our insides, and watch with vigilance for the return of the grime.  If we do this, we can hope with glint optimism that our remaining ticks may lead us to our own promised lands.

I never thought I'd ever learn so much from staring at a clock.