Louisville Process Theology Network

Time as a Quantity

Apr 22, 2010

From Page 148 ---


?“Emanating from a cathedral in the center of Rome, a line of ten thousand people stretches radially outward, like the hand of a giant clock, out to the edge of the city, and beyond. Yet the patient pilgrims are directed inward, not out.

They are waiting their turn to enter the Temple of Time. They are waiting to bow to the Great Clock. They have travelled long distances, even from other countries, to visit this shrine . . .

Inside the temple, twelve pilgrims stand in a circle around the Great Clock, on pilgrim for each hour mark on the huge configuration of metal and glass. Inside their circle, a massive bronze pendulum swings from the height of twelve meters, glints in the candlelight . . .

After an hour by the Great Clock, the pilgrims depart and another twelve file through the tall portals. This procession continued for centuries.

Long ago, before the Great Clock, time was measured by changes in heavenly bodies: the slow sweep of the stars across the night sky, the arc of the sun and variation in light, the waxing and waning of the moon, tides, seasons.

Time was measured also by heartbeats, the rhythms of drowsiness and sleep, the recurrence of hunger, the menstrual cycles, the duration of loneliness. Then, in a small town in Italy, the first mechanical clock was built. People were spellbound . . .

In some ways, life goes on the same as before the Great Clock. The streets and alleyways of towns sparkle with the laughter of children. Families gather in the good times to eat smoked beef and drink beer . . .

(Yet) every action, no matter how little, is no longer free. For all people know that in a certain cathedral in the center of Rome swings a massive bronze pendulum exquisitely connected to ratchets and gears, swings a massive bronze pendulum that measures out their lives . . .

They stand quietly; reading prayer books, holding their children . . . For they must watch measured that which should not be measured.?”




To be continued in the next post.