Lessons from a Sundial in the Shade

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Visit XICF (Xiamen Int'l Christian Fellowship)

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made.
What's a sundial in the shade?" Benjamin Franklin

"Ex hoc momento, pedento eternitas" (Now or never). English sundial motto, Leadbetter, 1737.

While strolling through the old Amoy Christian cemetery on Gulangyu (Kulangsoo)Islet I saw a grave with a sundial, but it was not much use to the owner or me because 1) it was in the shade and 2) time had ended for the grave's occupant. But the shaded sundial got me to thinking about how quickly my own time has flown (20 years in Xiamen already!).

This grave's occupant once cavorted about Gulangyu Islet as merrily as I do now, as if time would never end. Now they have been dead for decades, and trees have grown to shade both grave and sundial. It was sobering, even a bit chilling, and I stepped back into the comforting sunlight, and thought about the lessons one could learn from a shaded sundial.

USEFUL SUNDIALS MUST BE:
1) Upright. If they lean, they are off. We too must have standards, and values.
2) Pointed True North. You cannot set a sundial by a compass; it must point true north. In the same way, we must point True North, unwavering, in spite of the magnetic attractions of this life.
3) In the Light. A sundial in the shade is just an ornament; so too our lives are useless, swallowed up by darkness, if we are not in the light. We are the Light of the world only when we are in the light.
4) In the Right Light. No matter how carefully a sundial is placed, if illuminated by artificial light it will cast the wrong shadow. And so the one who "became an angel of light" can use us to cast the wrong shadow for others if we do not stay in the Right Light, pointing True North.

THE MAKER AND ENDER OF TIME
Our Father makes amd measures out time, and until He ends time as we know it, our lives are measured out day by day and breath by breath as the sundial's shadow crawls inexorably across the dial. But though we can no more stop time than we can stop the sun in its tracks, the Maker of Time can increase or decrease the amount of time allotted to us, as King Hezekiah learned in Isaiah 38:8: "Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down."

Why Hezekiah Received More Years. God reversed the shadow upon Hezekiah's sundial (the palace steps, used for telling time), giving King Hezekiah more time for two reasons:
1) Hezekiah asked for more time. "Ask and you shall receive." (Matt. 21:22)
2) Hezekiah had a use for it. How many on their deathbeds regret wasted years and wish they had a second chance? Our second chance is now, before our first chance, like the sundial, has run its course.

Stewards of Time Christ repeatedly taught that the Kingdom of heaven is about stewardship: use what we have well, and more will be given to us. Waste it, and even the little we have shall be taken away (Luke 12:48).

Of all we steward, nothing is more precious than time. Lost fortunes can be regained; lost time can never be recapture. But the Law of the Kingdom is that what we use well we are given more of, and what we waste we lose. It is no wonder that so many healthy people die within months of retirement.

Youthful Retirees in China We see many retired Americans in China teaching, and living fulfilling lives--and in their 80s have more vigor and zest for life than many half their age. Yet I've also seen others back home who, upon retiring, were like the rich man in Luke 12:16-21, who said he would build bigger barns to store his grain, and eat, drink and be merry. And that night his soul was required of him.

We cannot hoard time; we use it or lose it. That does not mean we should work ourselves into an early grave, but it does mean that we must use invest our time if, like Hezekiah, we are to be given more time. He is the vine, we are the branches. Unfruitful branches are removed, that others may bear more fruit. And what fruit shall we bear? Now that is another bowl of noodles.

NOTES:
"The best sundial that was ever constructed will not SUNDIAL tell its owner the time of day if he is so ignorant as to put it in the shade. Just as it is with that engine, and that sundial, so it is with the Bible. When men read it without benefit, "the fault is not in the Book, but in themselves." J.C.Ryle (1816-1900)

Also see,
E.W.Bullinger, "Ten Sermons on the Second Advent; II The Interpretation of Prophecy" (Preached at Oxford,1892).

Leadbetter, Charles, "Mechanick Dialling: or, the New Art of Shadows : freed from the many Obscurities, Superfluities and Errors of Former Writers upon this Subject . . , To which are added a choice Collection of Mottos in Latin and English. ." At the Black Swan,London,1737

Henslow, Geoffrey T., “Ye Sundial Booke”, W. and G. Foyle, London, 1935 (download the entire 1914 1st edition from Internet Archives):
Excerpts from Henslow:
Page 6: Herodotus, writing in 443 B.C., says that the Greeks acquired their knowledge of the sundial from the Babylonians; the Roman writers in turn give evidence of their acquisition of this instrument from the Greeks. Although the Romans were backward in the science of gnomonics and slow to adopt any particular form of horologe, they eventually constructed many a beautiful dial of varied design. The first sundial was erected in Rome in the year 290 B.C., this being taken from the Samnites by Papirius Cursor.

Another was brought to Rome by Valerius Messala from Catania 261 B.C., but it was not until 164 B.C.that, as far as we know, a dial constructed at Rome was set up by order of Q. Marcius Philippus. Cicero, writing in 48 B.C. to Tiro, mentions that he wished to place a sundial at his villa in Tusculum, and at a later date we see Romans erecting sundials in every possible corner of their villas and grounds.

Page 9: Until watches began to be made in numbers the sundial ruled supreme ; clocks did not in any way diminish their popularity, and if the truth were known doubtless only helped to cause a greater number to be erected, since not only could they be relied upon to keep accurate time, but also to serve for the setting of a clock when it had stopped.

Page 30 Sundial Motto:
"Believe me, mortals, when I say,
The past is what we make to-day."

Page 30: Poem called "Change"
CHANGE.
Learn a lesson from this dial,
Dwell not on the past;
Greet the present with a smile,
For future cannot last.
To-morrow soon becomes to-day,
The present falls behind,
And as each moment glides away
My maxim comes to mind.

Page 39.
SUNDIAL AT DENTON, Nr. CANTERBURY
If some hardship you do mourn,
Remember hours soon flee.
Thus every living creature born,
Though by some distraction torn,
Must take things as they be.

Page 42.
SAXON SUNDIAL BUILT IN OVER A
NORMAN WINDOW.
The Saxons divided time into tides,
The Normans for hours found place;
But the English with minutes and seconds besides,
Added more lines than my dial divides,
And now fractions I'm likely to grace.

Page 45
SUNDIAL IN ECCLESFIELD CHURCHYARD,
YORKSHIRE.
Dated 1862.
Finite men with finite minds,
Can measure finite things ;
But limitation always binds
Each power, and Nature ever finds,
Infinity needs wings.

Page 49
SUNDIAL AT CATTERICK, YORKSHIRE,
Now patience, mortals, patience know,
Who seek an hour to swiftly go,
For time when gone ne'er comes again,
And what's achieved will not remain.

PAge 287
SUNDIAL IN ILFORD CEMETERY.
As the tolling of a bell,
Proclaims a life that ends,
So I, though silently, do tell
The death of hours God sends.
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