Parable of the Clock

Silently I sit, but my hands move.  You know I’m here.  You look over to see what time I’m displaying.  Sometimes you seem anxious, until you get a phone call.  Other times you see me and you get wide-eyed, jump up, run about the house, then abruptly leave.

🎨 my painting "It's About Time"

What did I do?  Aren’t I here for you?  Even without you looking at me I exist.  I steadily move forward (except of course those times you force my hands to move ahead or back an hour - what’s up with that?).

I wonder if you appreciate me at all.  From what I’ve seen, humans only can take so much of me.  They are mortal after all.  Yet I continue on.  Even if this fixture wasn’t here, I am still out there. 

I sometimes dream of leaving.  My second and hour hands break through this glass and run off together, making time go by so fast, we do.

🎨 Riina Maido, Finland

All of life depends on time to move forward.  But this clock in itself is not time.  It’s a container - it moves, it quickens, it shuts down, it even breaks.  You humans are like these containers - we both are time capsules.  But with or without this capsule, time lives on, infinitely.  Knowing that, do you get wide-eyed, jump up, run around the house and suddenly feel like you may soon have to leave?

I guess my alarm just went off.       Theresa M.

PS - Hmmm… we are time capsules.  We each only hold so much of it.  Floating along till our capsule dissolves.

📷 annacapictures on pixabay

Parable of the Pencil

Remember back to first grade, I would need you to hold me just so, to mark on a paper.  You would try your left hand and your right hand.  Sometimes the grownups would force you to choose what they thought was right for you, but you would learn along the way when left to yourself what was best for you.

We pencils were thick for your tiny hands, but soon you got to use narrower ones.  And you liked choosing various colors.  You would especially be delighted if you could have your own name imprinted on it.

Yes, we wore down the more you wrote or drew.  But we would get sharpened.  You loved the smell of the wood chips filing off.  You kept good care of us.  Having a pencil case was a great way to keep us all together.

📷 ds_30 on pixabay

But as the years went on, you used pencils less often.  Pens didn’t have it any better, as more people used their contraptions to type their words, or even just speak them.

Words.  So many words.  When you wrote them with the pencil, you could easily erase what you misspelled, or what you really didn’t mean to say.  You could take time to review your words, to get it just right.  The eraser was a good friend, kind of like a conscience.

Now, people spout out things on social media so impulsively; they insult, ridicule, curse.  Their emotions in the moment have no reins.  They are so impatient to point out their own view, they don’t stop to realize they are dealing with others who also feel emotions.  There is no eraser to monitor the message.

Too bad us pencils aren’t used as often anymore.  With our pal the eraser, we could help folks slow down, and think about what they want to say, or need to say.  Need they say anything at all?     Theresa M

PS - Perhaps keeping a written journal - actually written with a pencil or pen - can help us slow down and get in touch with what is really going on inside us.

📷 Domas on pixabay