The other day a salesman
with an annoying duck on his polo came into my work and handed me a brochure.
The product he was selling was "Peace of Mind", in a big, colorful
font. “Oh man,” I thought. “How do I pass on this? I would love peace of mind.
How did they do it? And in such a small brochure...tell me more!” The man
proceeded to explain a bit more about what he was selling. It turns out he wasn't
selling peace of mind per se but instead, insurance policies. He went on
to warn me of nearly everything that could possibly go wrong in my lifetime -
everything from cancer, eye problems, and MRIs to dismemberment and car
crashes. When all of this wasn't enough, he then turned and asked if I was
married. I had to say that I am and he responded by listing everything that
could go wrong with my wife.
We learn at some point
in adolescence that time is precious, that bad things can happen to
us and that we need to be responsible with our time - taking care of our
health, planning for our future, etc. As our adult lives continue, we become
even more aware of the fact that time is a depleting and non-renewable
resource. We've followed this idea so far in Western societies that efficiency
has been regarded as one of the highest goals of any organization,
school, church, team, or even an individual life.
In Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he discusses
the invention of the clock as a significant sign that we have been devolving
from "time-keepers, to time-savers, and now into time-servers." Efficiency
has become a commandment. Too often efficiency has to do with the amount, or
lack of, time that was used. If time is money, then less time obviously equals
less money. Great! But what was sacrificed for efficiency? What was the
fat that was cut? Was it effort? Was it quality? Was it attention to an
individual?
The problem was not the
invention of the clock, for our inventions are the overflow of our passions and
focus. The problem was that it was a piece of machinery we wanted. It was either
our ego or our insecurities that wanted to create an "independent world of
mathematically measurable sequences", as Postman puts it, in order to have
a means of quantifying our significance. He goes on to say that “In the process
(of relying on the clock), we have learned irreverence toward the sun and the
seasons and the authority of nature is superseded." He insists that
"moment to moment, it turns out, is not God's conception, or natures. It
is man conversing with himself about and through a piece of machinery he
created."
The clock appears as a
sort of mirror on a wall, to which we can pose the question, "Who is the
greatest of them all?” But the clock can only answer in terms of the criteria
it was designed to measure. Postman argues, "With the invention of the
clock, eternity ceased to serve as the measure and the focus of human events."
Much of humanity would consider that a mission accomplished! In fact, Postman
adds, "The ticking of the clock may have had more to do with the weakening
of God's supremacy than all the treatises produced by the philosophers of the Enlightenment."
We don't look at the clock 56 times a day because it is all that impressive; we
look at it because it tells us how impressive we are.
The clock is an independent,
objective authority. Because we have created it as such, we forget that it is
tied to other aspects of the universe. Instead, we break up our day into small
fragments and then ask of our invention, “Was I productive today? Was I
significant?” But the clock’s objectivity renders it incapable of answering
such questions. It is only capable of answering a different sort of question. “Did
I send out three emails before 5:00 pm today?” The clock, if it reads 4:56 pm, can
respond with a yes. It is incapable of assigning any significance to something
that I have not already assigned myself. If sending out three emails was
important to me, then the clock reading 4:56 pm will excite me because of my
belief in the importance of those emails, not because of the clock.
In this way, the clock
functions as both a mirror and an addictive master. I can ask comparative
questions of it but I can also be enslaved by its answers. I am assigning the clock
more power than it actually has; what I am effectively
(perhaps subconsciously) doing is assigning my own self as the lead
authority on what is significant in my life.
Ravi Zacharias often
argues that "you cannot assign yourself your own significance." You
need someone or something outside yourself to assign your identity. I find
it interesting that many of us find it too difficult or even damaging to look
to “someone" else in our lives to show us our significance. We would
rather look to “something”. It will be less fulfilling in the long run but we
choose it because we believe it will also be less hurtful.
When we are desperately
searching for answers to the fundamental questions in our lives (“Am I
talented? Am I smart? Am I loved? Am I significant?!”), there are many places
we can turn. I turn on a video game and it says, "Congratulations, you
beat level 4!" I hear, "You are talented." I ask my iPhone what
time the sun rises and it says, “6:24 am." I hear, "You are smart because
you have a tool that has the answers.” I sign on to Facebook and see 19
notifications from people that liked my picture. I hear, "You are
loved." I check my Twitter and it says, "You now have 109
followers." I hear, "You are significant."
The tragedy is that we break
life up into so many pieces that it ceases to be whole any longer. The noise
resounding from our inventions, "which are busy telling us how great we
are", does an adequate job of clouding the doubt that we may not be that
great. Or worse, it deafens the loving voice of a Creator who is waiting to assign
us the greatest significance as His specific and intentional creation. I find
it interesting that death is so closely related to this discussion of
efficiency and significance. I also find it amazingly inspiring that in
the resurrection of Christ, there is a power that has conquered and
is no longer bound by time. While the length of time it took Jesus to be raised
from the dead has been measured, time itself was not the healer, but only the
revealer of how God would provide all his creation with healing. Jesus is a
perfect blend of the temporary and eternal – an eternal God becoming man in a
specific time and place. He is the intersection of the nature of man and the
nature of God, who demonstrates that the divine Being is supremely powerful
beyond the structure of time and, certainly, of the ticking clock.
By Tim
