Day 33: The Hour That Wasn't There

The sun is shining as I write this. Yesterday, it would've already been dark by this time.

Last night was Daylight Savings Time here. Not everywhere in the world does it, but I like it--especially in the spring. Overnight, all our clocks get set forward an hour, and suddenly the sun stays up longer the following days.

Just before I fell asleep last night, I wondered, "What happens to the hour between 2:00 and 3:00, when the clocks just automatically skip forward? What happens to the hour that isn't there?"

That one hour seems like a hole in time. I wasn't sleeping at 2:30 last night because 2:30 didn't exist. Weird.

Now that I'm fully awake to think about it, I see that time didn't really change last night at all. But something else did. We changed our frame of reference for time. We just scooted our time-measurers (clocks) forward, and began calling that point in time something else. We simply changed 2:00 to 3:00.

That frame-of-reference shift changed everything.


I think this dollar-a-day process has done the same thing for me.

My frame of reference for looking at the poor has suddenly shifted. Now that I've walked a mile in their shoes (as best as I can), I see things in a new light. I see what it might be like. I see how difficult it can be.

In the past month, my 2:00 has shifted to 3:00. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I somewhere along the way my thinking has changed.

All I know is that I'm thankful for the experience--and for the shift.

I'm thankful for the hour that wasn't there.