It’s Friday, which means I have to wind up the clock on the wall. It’s my wife’s clock. She brought it from Poland, where it had originally been her paternal grandmother’s who lived with them when my wife was a child and young woman.

I’m glad it’s here. Every half-hour, day and night, it sounds the time. When it’s quiet in the house, one can hear the clock ticking as the pendulum swings.

Sure, as the week goes on and the clock runs down, it does fall a bit behind. Usually, by Friday, I have to push the clock hands ahead five to seven minutes when I rewind the clock. 

But that clock performs a valuable function: it reminds one of time. Time that is a constant (no matter how fast or slow you work, time moves at its quite regular pace). Time that is inexorable (the clock ticks, whether you’d like to slow it down or not). Time that is limited (if I don’t wind the clock, it stops. One day, so will I). 

As a family heirloom, it did those same functions for at least two generations before us. Our family members also heard that clock, were pushed on or worried by its ticking and, in the case of grandmother and father, have also stopped — at least in this world. I hope that one of our three children will one day give that clock a home in their home.

Sometimes I think we forget just what the “old-fashioned devices” used to do. Most clocks today are digital, which means they are silent. This means that, while they measure time’s passage and even show up to the human who inquires, in one sense, they are not “partners” to their human owner. They don’t “speak” to him by ringing the hours or even letting him hear time’s tick-tock, which matches his own heart’s tick-tock. No, at best, they are utilitarian: they’ll sound if you set an alarm but, otherwise, their “conversation” is strictly one-way: they inform only when their owner decides to consult them.

And that’s assuming people have a self-standing clock. How often have clocks and watches been replaced by telephones? As separate accessories, clocks and even watches also make a statement: time is autonomous. Time in itself counts. It’s not just another function or app. While I am responsible for using time, time is not mine — it does not relate to me — in the same fashion my Apple Pay does. 

And, as I said, my wife’s clock has come down two generations, with hopes it goes down even more. Our gadgets are not just consumeristic, they are utilitarian: they have planned obsolescence that denigrates the value of “passing on” something. My wife’s clock — whose purpose is to mark time, not provide 72 services on one device — was designed to run as long as its gears last … and they have lasted for at least 60-plus years. Who has bequeathed their iPhones to their families? And who would want it?

The chimes from the adjacent Episcopal church stand kind of halfway between my clock and our silent “timekeeping” devices. I say “halfway” because, in proper suburban fashion, the chimes do not disturb the night. The polite chimes begin hourly at 9 a.m. and end at 9 p.m. As I noted above, my clock marks every half-hour day and night.

And I’m grateful for that. I say that because sometimes, when my clock “talks” to me through its ticking and ringing, it’s most effective at night. It’s most effective when all the other quotidian noise has fallen silent and there’s just me, time, and maybe my heartbeat heard on the pillow. It’s most effective when those conversation partners alone can “discuss” — consider — their interaction, especially in “the time that’s left.”

I’ve previously written about church bells as “aural sacramentals,” whose sound interrupts the flow of our daily routines to remind us of God, both in terms of the hour (e.g., the Angelus) but also of the origins of those sounds (i.e., a church). But time itself is a divine gift, whose flow should also remind us of its giver. That flow is best recalled when our clocks “talk back” to us. We’ve lost something when we lost traditional clocks.

It’s June, a month of weddings and graduations. Ever considered the gift of a ticking, talking clock?