By Beth Lefever, Student Minister

I am writing this the day before we change our clocks to accommodate the shift from Daylight Savings Time. I have a long, trailing, string figuratively tied around my finger to remind me of this important task.  But I don't get it.  Didn't I just, instruction manuals in hand, work my way through the spring time-changing of the clocks of my VCR, clock radio, microwave, car, toaster, vacuum cleaner, eye-lash curler, and electric callous remover? And my tooth brush?  Sigh…

I know there may be, or at least may once have been, good reason for this biannual disruption of our lives, but for the life of me, even having heard all the arguments pro and con, I can't imagine what it might be.  I can only think that this twice-yearly, human-manufactured, clockwork reminder of time slipping by and technology once again befuddling (some of) us, seems, well… mean-spirited, and definitely at cross purposes to our mental wellbeing.  But then that's me.

At least in the spring we remind ourselves about how to adjust our clocks by using that cheerful little maxim "spring ahead" as opposed to autumn's gloomy "fall back."   Fall back?!  Who wants to do that?

But we might want to do just that if the phrase, in fact, meant a fall back into a gentler, more peaceful lifestyle, a more relaxed, less stressed way of life.  We might very much want to fall back if that meant moving into a way of being in which we rest and work in keeping with the hum and harmony of earth's eternal song, the peaceful throbbing of earth's rhythmic beat.

But it doesn't mean that very often -- that gentler way of being -- for we humans are a busy species.  We are ever pulled in many directions, with scarcely the time, in any season, to note the earth's nudge or pull.

My wish for all of us is that it might be different this year.  That we might be more intentional about falling back, at least a little, into autumn's gracious arms, winter's silent nights, and earth's ever coursing, ever assuring, rhythm and thrum and flow.