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FAKE TIME VS REAL TIME
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 15, 2025 – I wrote a few days ago about solar time and how it differs from Daylight Savings Time (DST). I mentioned that our bodies are naturally synched to the sun, not to an artificial construct like DST, and that because DST jumps ahead of solar time (up to two hours in some locations), we have the constant sense that we’re running behind and don’t have enough time to finish what we need to finish. Being significantly ahead of solar time also gives us the sense that we’re never quite ‘in the moment’ – that lunch time is not really lunch time, dinner time not really dinner time, and bedtime not really bedtime. We perpetually feel out of synch with time because we are actually out of synch with time, if we follow DST.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I’m currently stationed, DST is nearly one and half hours ahead of solar time. Ironically, the city has an historic cannon that thunders to life once a day to mark high noon. Except it isn’t really high noon when the cannon booms; under DST, it’s only a little past 10:30 a.m., and the sun is nowhere near its zenith.
Should this concern us as born-again believers? Is there a spiritual impact in following fake time like DST that can be up to two hours ahead of real time? I believe there is a profound spiritual impact and that it’s rooted in the constant stress generated from being forced to schedule daily activities according to a time marker that is patently false. The constant stress affects our patience level, as well as the time we spend with God and Jesus in prayer and the time we spend reading God’s Word. How many times have you cut short or even foregone a Bible reading session because you felt you didn’t have enough time? The truth is – you did have enough time; you were just following the wrong clock
DST is fake time. It forces us to rise before we’re sufficiently rested, eat when we’re not particularly hungry, fast when we are hungry, and go to bed when we’re not yet sleepy. You can’t win if you schedule your daily activities according to DST, as you’ll always feel like you’re running behind or otherwise out of synch with time.
I recently started following solar time, and it constantly amazes me how different time feels to me. When I ignore worldly timekeepers, I experience a deep sense of having plenty of time to do whatever it is I need to do. I don’t feel rushed. I don’t feel like I’m falling behind. If I happen to glance at one of my clocks (all set to local solar time), I don’t experience that unwelcome jolt of feeling that I’m running late, which DST always gives me. I have plenty of time for God. I have plenty of time for his Word. And I have plenty of time for Jesus, though I’m still working on the patience thing (lol).
I heartily recommend switching to local solar time and scheduling your daily rounds according to it.
And if the worldly clock nags you that you’re running late, just ignore it.
CHANGING TIME
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 11, 2025 – Time has a feeling. We associate certain times of the day with certain activities and therefore certain feelings. Mornings are typically for waking up, which means we engage in activities that help us do that. Evenings, on the other hand, have a whole different feeling. Evenings are typically for winding down, and our activities reflect that.
But what if time is changed? What if morning isn’t quite yet morning and evening not quite yet evening? What if the morning is not yet dawn and the evening not yet dusk? Would we still want to do the same activities an hour and half ahead of what our body is telling us is the “real time”? Because our body knows exactly what time it is, even if consciously we don’t.
When I was a kid, my bedtime was 8 p.m. sharp. I remember that, because I always had trouble falling asleep in the summertime. I remember lying in bed and staring out the window at the sunshine. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not get to sleep.
In real time in Halifax, 8 p.m. in the summertime is dark. What I mean by “real time” is solar time. In Daylight Savings Time, it’s not dark until nearly 9:30 p.m., which is almost an hour and a half later. If, as a kid, I’d gone to bed at 9:30 DST instead of 8:00 DST, I would have conked out the minute my head hit the pillow.
As a culture, we have the perpetual feeling that time is getting faster and faster and that our days just fly by. Is it possible instead that the shift from “real time” (solar time) to “fake time” (DST and Standard Time) has robbed us of our true sense of time, and in so doing has made us feel that we’re always falling behind? Our body says it’s one time, while our clock claims it’s much later.
Take now, for instance. My laptop clock tells me it’s nearly 12 noon, but my solar clock says it’s just 10:30 a.m. These two times bring with them entirely different feelings related to the activities attached to them. They also have entirely different qualities of sunlight. So if my body is telling me that it’s mid-morning and maybe time for a snack but the world is telling me it’s high noon and time for a full mid-day meal, how is my body to make sense of this conflict other than to feel that time is getting faster?
But the truth is that time is not getting faster. Time is getting changed into fake time that doesn’t reflect reality. When it’s 5:30 a.m. according to the sun but already 7 a.m. according to DST, should we really be surprised that it’s so difficult to drag ourselves out of bed?
Again – time is not getting faster; time is getting changed, like scripture said it would. But not in my house. In my house, time is set to solar time, so no matter what time the world tells me it is, I’m always pleasantly surprised to find that it’s much earlier than I thought it was, and I still have lots of time to do whatever needs to be done.
Feels good!
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 