Great-Grandpa’s Clock

By Tom Connolly, jr

          The twins ran home as fast as their little legs would carry them.  “Mom, Mom!” the girls cried as they burst through the back door and directly into the kitchen.  “Girls, what is it?  What has happened?” their Mom asked.  Shannon was the first to answer, “Mrs. Magillicutty is making us learn to tell time on those old fashioned clock faces.”  “Why can’t we just use digital clocks, like the ones on your cell phone?” Nicole added.  “Is that what this is about?” replied their Mom with a grin.  “Well now, you know your own Dad still carries one of those old fashioned watches, as you call it.  Why don’t you wait for him to come home and let him help you?” The twins looked at each other and decided they would wait for their Dad, especially if that meant not looking at the clock faces until then.

          “Hello, all my girls,” their Dad called as he walked through the front door.  The girls ran to their Dad and, without waiting for their hug, began telling him about that awful, old Mrs. Magillicutty.  “Dad, can you believe we have to learn how to use one of those old fashioned clocks things?!?” Shannon demanded.  “What’s the point?” Nicole chimed in.  “The whole entire world is using digital time!  This is stupid!”  In a flash, the girls knew that Nicole had pushed too far.  “Nicole Patricia!” like the sergeant he once was, Dad’s voice boomed as if he was back in the Army.  “I know Dad, I’m sorry.  ‘Things cannot be stupid, but I might be if I keep saying it’” Nicole said like a robot.  “You always tell us that,” she said, now in a much softer voice.  “Now,” Dad said, “slow down, give me a kiss to say hello, and tell me again what your very nice, second grade teacher is trying to teach you?  Did I hear something about God’s gift of a clock?”  “God’s gift?” the girls asked surprised.  “I tell you what.  You two go sit down at the kitchen table,” Dad told them.  “I’ll be there in a moment.”

          Just a few minutes later, Dad came into the kitchen carrying an old wooden box, about the size of a shoebox.  “Oh, I haven’t seen that in years.  I’m glad you were able to find it so quickly,” Mom said looking at the box.  The girls looked at the old box as Dad put it on the table.  It was very pretty, but the girls wondered what could be inside.  “When I was your age, and I had to learn how to tell time just like you, so my grandpa made this for me,” and as Dad said that, he pulled an old clock out of the box.  It had a round face about the size of a saucer for your teacup.  The face sat on top of a tall, wooden base that was smaller at the top and wider at the bottom.  It was about as long as the size of their Dad’s big hand and kind of looked like a dress for one of their dolls the way it swept out at the sides.  The girls looked at each other and, with that special bond that twins have, knew that this was indeed a special clock.  As they looked closer at it, they realized that the clock face did not have numbers on it, the way their clock in Mrs. Magillicuty’s class did.  Instead, it had the pictures of what looked like old men for each number.  “Are they wearing dresses?” Nicole blurted out.  “No,” Shannon said jumping up, “They are wearing ‘yogas’”.  “In time, my dears”, Dad answered. 

         
“Girls,” he started, “Whenever I see a clock, whether it is the watch I wear on my wrist, the pocket watch I wear on Sundays, or any old-fashioned clock on the wall, I am reminded of the gift of time God has given me.  The time to spend with your beautiful Mom, my two darling gifts right here, and my patients at the hospital and all my friends there, or time with everyone at our church.  All my time here on earth is God’s gift to me and I appreciate every minute.”  “Can’t you feel that way when you see a digital clock?” asked Shannon.  “I’m just saying, isn’t it the same thing?”  “Well, that it is”, he replied.  “But it was this clock of grandpa’s that taught me exactly how much of a gift time is.”  “How?” Nicole demanded to know.  She felt she had been patient enough.  “I guess it’s time to have a closer look at the face of this clock, and tell you about these men ‘in their robes,” Dad said.

          Dad placed the clock upright on the table.  He pulled open the glass that protected the clock’s face, and what Mrs. Magillicutty called, “the clock’s hands” and began his story.  “As your teacher told you, there are twelve numbers on the face of the clock.  One number, or in this case a man, for each hour of the day, and one for each hour of the night, am and pm.  That is why the number twelve at the top is so important.  During the day, we call the number twelve, noon, and at night, we call it midnight.  Now girls, do you remember the names of Snow White’s seven dwarfs?”  “Sure,” they both said.  Together they named all seven dwarfs, “Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey.”  “Now my dears,” Dad said.  “Can you name for me the twelve apostles that our Lord, Jesus chose?”  Now the girls looked at each other, but this time they were trying to see which one of them could remember all twelve.  “Well,” Shannon said, “we know that He chose Simon, and changed his name to Peter.”  “Good,” said Dad.  “In fact, your great-granddad put Simon Peter is at the number twelve.  Now as for the rest of the apostles, we have,” and as he named them, Dad pointed to one of the men on the clock face, “James and John, the sons of Zebedee at one and two o’clock, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, Judas Iscariot, Matthew, Thomas, James the Younger, Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot.”  “Hey, Judas was the one who turned Jesus into the Romans.” Shannon said.  “That’s right, he was replaced by Mathias after that,” Dad told them.  “And John was, something about how Jesus loved Him,” added Nicole. “Like Uncle John.”  “Right again,” Dad laughed, “John is the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’, just like you girls love your Uncle John.”  “And didn’t Matthew write something in the bible?” asked Shannon.  “Both John and Matthew each wrote what we call a Gospel,” corrected Dad.  “So you can see, each hour we can be reminded of one of the apostles.”

With the glass open, Dad pointed to the very center of the clock face.  “What is this point here?” Dad asked.  “It’s just what holds the hands together,” Nicole said.  “Yea, we used one of those metal things when we made our clocks with a paper plate and cut outs,” Shannon added.  “Well,” said Dad, “it’s actually God.  Do you girls remember learning about the Trinity in Sunday school?”  “Sure,” they said.  “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”  “Well done, ladies”, Dad replied.  “Now we can look at the clock hands.  Each one shows us one Person of the Trinity.”  “I thought a clock had only two hands,” Shannon wondered aloud.  “Let’s start with the hour hand and we’ll get to the others.  The shorter hand, the hour hand, is God the Father.  It moves slowly around the clock, taking all twelve hours to go around once.  This reminds us that God our Father is slow to anger.  When you look at the clock and see where the little hand is pointing, the hour of the day is the number it is pointing to, or the number it has just past.  Can you see?”  Dad began to move the big hand around the clock and the girls watched the little hand move slowly from the three to the four.  “So when you moved the big hand all the way around, it was 3 o’clock until the big hand got to 12 again, then it was 4 o’clock?” asked Shannon.  “Exactly Shannon, well done!” said Dad.  “So would that be Phillip o’clock?” teased Nicole.  This time, Dad said nothing, but looked at Nicole over his round spectacles.  Nicole knew this meant, “That’ll do, young lady.”

          Dad started again, “Let’s move to the big hand now.  This hand is…” “I know, I know”, shouted Shannon.  “It’s Jesus!”  “OK, Shannon, and what does it teach us about God the Son,” asked Dad.  “That he gets mad faster?” asked Nicole.  Shannon looked at Nicole as if she had just picked her nose.  “Not exactly,” said Dad with a sigh.  “Our Lord Jesus is with us every minute of the day.  The bible teaches us that we could not hide from Him even if we tried.  The clock shows us that we can never really be alone, for He is always with us.”  “Wow,” Nicole said.  “That’s what you told me when I was afraid to go to sleep in my own room.  That Jesus would be with me.  Doesn’t He have to sleep?”  “No,” Dad said.  “The bible says God never needs sleep and can see all things at all times.”  “Cool!” the girls said together. 

          “Now it is time to look at the third and last hand of the clock,” Dad announced.  “But our clock at school only has two hands,” said Nicole.  “Yea, Mrs. Magillicutty didn’t say anything about a third hand,” agreed Shannon.  Dad smiled as he pulled a very small key from a little drawer in the bottom of the clock.  Then, he opened the back of the clock, just as he opened the glass earlier.  Dad put the little key into the back of the clock and began to turn and turn the key.  When he was done, and the key was placed safely back into its drawer, the girls began to hear the clock.  “Tick, tock.  Tick, tock” the clock began to sound.  The girls noticed that a very thin hand, longer than the little hand but shorter than the minute hand.  It was moving fast around the clock face, just a little bit on every tick, and stopped at every tock.  As the girls watched, Dad decided it was time to start his lesson again.  “Girls,” he said softly, “this third hand reminds me of God the Holy Spirit.  In many clocks, you do not see this hand, but it is what helps the whole clock keep proper time.  Just like the Holy Spirit, we do not see Him, but he is within us keeping us proper.  Many people call this their conscience, but believers know they have the Holy Spirit within them.” 

          “So girls, will that help you remember how to tell time?” asked dad.  “Maybe not, but I bet we both remember that God gave us the gift of time!” announced Nicole.  “Really dad,” Shannon added, “this is great.  It’s way better than Mrs. Magillicutty taught.  Maybe you should be a teacher.”  “No way!” Nicole yelled as she jumped up.  Everyone looked at Nicole, their faces all curled up like they wanted to ask her a question.  “I mean, your patients need you at the hospital.  But I guess you could write a book.”  “A book?” asked dad.  The twins looked at each other, than to their mom, who gave them a wink.  Shannon spoke first, “She’s right dad.  You can tell lots of kids about the clock.  The clock reminds us of the time God has given us.  The twelve numbers are the twelve apostles.”  “My turn,” Nicole jumped in.  “The little hand is for God the Father, and He’s slow to get mad.  The big hand is for Jesus, and He’s, uh…um, oh yea, with us every minute.  That’s why they call it the minute hand.  Then the really fast one is for the Holy Spirit, ‘cause he keeps us Christians proper.” 

          Dad looked at his darling daughters and smiled.  “Well, I know your great-grandpa is smiling in heaven hearing you two girls.  Write a book,” he thought aloud.  “Maybe God will give me the time.”

Proverbs 22:19

©2006 Serpent and Dove Notations

Attention Parents, Grandparents and Guardians:  I find that if you read a story over a few times, then tell it, it has an even better effect.