Time Change

Conversation in person and on social media the past few days has often included the time change from the past weekend. The darkness at the end of the day is a struggle for many, including myself, and though I enjoy the light in the morning, it does not offset for me having to move around in the darkness after leaving work at day’s end.

On Tuesday mornings I’m at the church early for our service of Morning Prayer. Depending on the season and amount of light outside, I see a squirrel whose morning ritual has become familiar to me. This squirrel is unfazed by the time change; his days are always marked by the rising and setting of the sun. We are the ones who artificially bend the day to our control, imposing our schedules on the earth’s pattern of seasons and days.

Our bodies know the earth’s rhythm. After the time change on Sunday, many of us have awakened earlier in the morning and been sleepy earlier in the evening because our bodies have yet to adjust to a different rhythm. Yet we adjust eventually to the time change, like adjusting to a pair of new shoes that are uncomfortable at first, then get broken in as we wear them.

Thomas Merton observes that each morning at the point between darkness and dawn, creation asks God for permission to be. However, we humans “have fallen into self-mastery and cannot ask permission of anyone. . . We know the time and dictate the terms.” I wonder how life might be for us if we lived like the squirrel, who rises when it’s light and goes to sleep when it’s dark. I wonder if we’d have less stress and more freedom if we didn’t force ourselves to live by artificial time.

 The squirrel I see on Tuesdays reminds me of the Rule of St. Benedict. Benedict’s monks adjusted their schedules by the seasons. The physical labor, the number of psalms recited daily, the number of meals—these components of the order of each day were different when the days were shorter.

Are there some small changes we can make as these days shorten, changes that help us honor the season and connect us more fully to the rhythms of creation around us? Maybe you allow yourself to go to bed earlier or read rather than watching TV. Maybe you avoid running errands in the evenings and spend time with family or drink a cup of tea. Can you think of how you might welcome the shorter days?