W. Arthur Kale - "Calendar Watching" (January 3, 1965)

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-	For pulling down old calendars	0:19
	and putting up new ones	0:25
	on the wall,	0:29
	on the desk,	0:31
	and in one's wallet,	0:34
	this simple familiar exercise	0:37
	reminds us that in the affairs of individuals	0:41
	and groups and institutions,	0:46
	the calendar is central.	0:50
	Man is the creature	0:55
	fated to be, among other destinies,	0:58
	a calendar watcher.	1:03
	On the first Sunday of a new calendar year,	1:09
	a year designated by the numerals one,	1:15
	nine,	1:20
	six,	1:22
	five,	1:23
	an appropriate message for man,	1:25
	the calendar watcher	1:29
	is found, I believe, in the 90th Psalm.	1:32
	This prayer hymn,	1:40
	familiar to millions,	1:44
	with its unusual imagery,	1:48
	with its sincerity of spirit,	1:52
	with its stateliness of style,	1:56
	with its depth and richness of thought,	2:01
	is truly a mature man's	2:06
	confession of faith.	2:10
	Its message has brought steadiness to the wavering,	2:14
	direction to the bewildered and the lost,	2:21
	comfort to the sorrowing.	2:26
	Its famous lines are quoted frequently.	2:30
	Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place	2:36
	in all generations.	2:43
	Lord, from everlasting to everlasting,	2:47
	Thou art God.	2:52
	Lord, before the mountains were brought forth,	2:55
	forever Thou hast formed the earth and the world.	2:59
	Truly Thou art God.	3:04
	Lord, a thousand years	3:07
	are but as yesterday.	3:11
	A thousand years are but as a watch	3:14
	in the night,	3:19
	approximately four hours,	3:21
	the equivalent of a millennium.	3:25
	Like all great literature,	3:29
	this psalm never seems never to grow old.	3:31
	It never ceases to have its relevance	3:36
	in the thought and life of man.	3:39
	It never fails to speak powerfully	3:43
	to all who will listen.	3:47
	On this the first Sunday of a new calendar year,	3:51
	I invite you to listen to this great section	3:56
	of the book of Psalms that declares,	4:00
	first of all, that man cannot be satisfied	4:04
	with the temporary	4:09
	or with the evanescent.	4:11
	As we pull down the last page of an old calendar,	4:15
	and set up the fresh one	4:21
	at this season,	4:24
	we are again reminded,	4:26
	as the psalmist himself was reminded	4:30
	of man's transitory life,	4:33
	man understands himself in terms of only a moment	4:37
	of existence here on the planet Earth.	4:44
	Man finds himself imprisoned	4:49
	in the house of the contemporaneous.	4:53
	Sometimes longing, indeed praying, for deliverance,	4:58
	and yet, limited and confined	5:03
	to his own period.	5:06
	He is absorbed in the routines	5:09
	of his daily affairs.	5:12
	He is enmeshed in the complexities	5:15
	of his responsibilities.	5:18
	At times, he is perennially,	5:22
	or he is perennially excited	5:24
	about his achievements,	5:28
	his technical advancement made possible.	5:31
	He is persuaded by his own genius	5:37
	and his own industry.	5:40
	Nevertheless, through it all,	5:44
	he is the lonely soul.	5:48
	He is the tired individual.	5:52
	He is the person who clutches	5:57
	after some kind of security,	5:59
	who hungers after peace of mind,	6:02
	after satisfying fellowship with others.	6:05
	He is withal, at certain intense moments,	6:11
	plainly afraid.	6:17
	He confesses that his wistful despairing hopes	6:21
	are often quite unreal.	6:27
	He knows he is allowed but a brief span,	6:32
	his threescore years and ten,	6:35
	more or less;	6:39
	or a few more indeed,	6:41
	and yet, at best, they are,	6:43
	in the words of the psalmist,	6:45
	years of labor and sorrow,	6:48
	years of disappointment.	6:53
	Through it all confesses this ancient poet,	6:56
	there is there abides in the heart,	7:02
	in the very depths of man,	7:06
	one tremendous and passionate yearning;	7:08
	namely, to be	7:14
	and to do something	7:17
	that will outlast	7:20
	time itself.	7:23
	To this creature,	7:28
	watching the calendar	7:31
	and feeling his creatureliness	7:34
	with growing intensity	7:38
	as the years come and go,	7:42
	to him,	7:45
	Psalm number 90	7:48
	speaks a message that	7:52
	cannot be dated	7:55
	by the calendar.	7:59
	Man says this message	8:02
	has, in all generations,	8:05
	found his dwelling place	8:09
	not merely in the familiar scenes	8:12
	of his earthly abode,	8:16
	and not among the transitory existence,	8:18
	or items of existence	8:23
	with which he is familiar	8:24
	and is daily associated.	8:26
	He finds his dwelling place in God.	8:29
	This is a message man does not	8:34
	and cannot speak to himself.	8:37
	The wisdom of the day	8:42
	or the vast accumulated store of knowledge	8:46
	recorded day by day,	8:50
	year by year,	8:54
	age by age,	8:57
	does not speak	8:59
	to man's deepest needs.	9:02
	Psalm number 90 proclaims	9:05
	that although God contrasts with man,	9:09
	He is man's	9:15
	dwelling place.	9:19
	God is older than time	9:21
	and above all time,	9:25
	while man is bound by time.	9:29
	God is deathless;	9:34
	man is mortal.	9:38
	God is full;	9:41
	man is empty.	9:44
	Yet despite that contrast,	9:47
	God is man's	9:50
	dwelling place.	9:53
	He is the abode of man	9:55
	in his transitoriness.	9:58
	He is the head of the household,	10:02
	which is man.	10:06
	Thus this ancient thinker	10:10
	and poet and singer	10:15
	would have man turn from his thoughts	10:19
	of mortality and emptiness	10:23
	to a great act of prayerful faith.	10:27
	Who can teach man the true lessons of life?	10:34
	None but God Himself.	10:40
	So the psalmist in one verse	10:43
	urges man to pray,	10:46
	teach us to number our days,	10:50
	that we may get a heart	10:56
	of wisdom.	11:00
	Here is the ancient poet declaring	11:04
	that man, watching his calendar,	11:07
	also discovers that the number of days	11:13
	is not as important as the meaning	11:19
	of all that the days bring.	11:25
	Let some bureau of vital statistics	11:31
	record and interpret the mathematics of man's existence.	11:37
	The psalmist calls men to consider the meaning	11:45
	of existence.	11:50
	There is no season,	11:52
	no day, no calendar year,	11:55
	that does not offer a time for reflection	11:58
	upon the purposes of life;	12:03
	a time and opportunity for participation	12:06
	in some great learning experience.	12:10
	As man takes, no doubt, the brevity of life,	12:17
	he also considers	12:23
	what are the deep and abiding realities	12:25
	with which he is associated,	12:32
	the great causes to which he may devote	12:35
	his days.	12:41
	So teach us to count	12:43
	our days,	12:47
	not to calculate their total number,	12:50
	but to measure their significance;	12:54
	count the days	12:58
	that, on the surface, are but routine,	13:00
	and which appear to be under the control	13:07
	of prosaic matters.	13:10
	Here is man in his family,	13:14
	and the events of family life	13:18
	occur on schedule,	13:20
	birth,	13:24
	childhood,	13:25
	youth,	13:27
	maturity,	13:28
	old age,	13:30
	death,	13:32
	eating,	13:35
	sleeping,	13:36
	buying,	13:38
	selling,	13:40
	laughter,	13:43
	crying,	13:45
	conversation,	13:47
	periods of silence,	13:49
	going to work,	13:53
	returning from work,	13:55
	preparations for cold weather,	13:58
	preparations for hot weather,	14:02
	day by day,	14:05
	year by year,	14:08
	for each member of the family,	14:11
	life starts,	14:15
	life develops,	14:18
	life ends.	14:20
	Is there nothing more to be said?	14:23
	Listen to the ancient poet	14:27
	who affirms that the meaning of it all	14:29
	is not to be found	14:33
	in the recitation of the facts,	14:34
	but rather in the great and abiding relationships	14:38
	of all that happens	14:43
	to the presence	14:47
	and the purposes	14:49
	of Him who considers a thousand years	14:51
	as but yesterday	14:58
	when it is passed.	15:01
	Religion, as interpreted by this 90th Psalm,	15:04
	would have man in every era,	15:09
	in every year,	15:13
	turn his thoughts toward the God	15:15
	who is over all,	15:19
	and interpret all that happens	15:22
	in family and personal life,	15:25
	all that takes place, say, in a full millennium,	15:28
	as but yesterday.	15:35
	Thus,	15:40
	one single individual	15:42
	or a family or indeed a generation	15:46
	of men and women on this planet	15:50
	may acquire a new dimension	15:53
	for life,	15:59
	not the dimension of the temporary	16:01
	or of the contemporaneous.	16:05
	Man finds he has a new destiny	16:08
	that can be measured only	16:12
	in terms of the Creator's nature,	16:14
	which is eternal.	16:18
	Count the days that are prosaic	16:22
	and routine and dull,	16:26
	that grind away and beat upon us.	16:29
	Yet see those days	16:34
	through the eyes of Him who is ageless	16:38
	and eternal.	16:45
	Or count the days when the unexpected happens.	16:48
	I think this morning of the king of Babylon and his princes	16:54
	who are feasting with hearts light and joyous.	16:58
	When suddenly there appeared the hand	17:05
	and the handwriting on a wall,	17:09
	foretelling the end of the feast	17:14
	and the end of the king	17:17
	and the end of the kingdom.	17:19
	Life brings its periods	17:22
	of unexpected twists of fortune	17:24
	and turn in the course.	17:30
	Many of you join me in recalling	17:35
	that in the early hours of December 7 in the year,	17:39
	the calendar year 1941,	17:44
	life was somewhat routine for many of us.	17:47
	It was a Sunday.	17:52
	Some of us were planning to attend church	17:55
	and worship as usual.	17:58
	Some of us took it to be the usual holiday	18:02
	and plan for rest or for recreation,	18:06
	or the trip to the family reunion,	18:10
	or some other plan that had been made.	18:13
	But before the sun was set	18:17
	on that particular day,	18:19
	the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor	18:21
	had been flashed across the earth,	18:24
	and life took on a new meaning,	18:26
	and the relationships we had in family	18:30
	and across the nation,	18:33
	and international relationships as well,	18:35
	were seriously and permanently changed.	18:38
	The unexpected occurred.	18:42
	Count the days when the unexpected happens,	18:47
	but see the unexpected through the eyes	18:51
	of Him who abides.	18:54
	Let Him be the dwelling place of man,	18:58
	whatever happens.	19:02
	Count the days when life needs explaining.	19:05
	I think of Job,	19:14
	man of wealth,	19:18
	man of prominence,	19:21
	a man who enjoyed the affection of his family,	19:24
	who had achieved a measure of	19:28
	prominence and stability	19:32
	and permanence, he thought, in community affairs.	19:34
	Yet in another hour,	19:41
	observe him with his fortune gone,	19:42
	with the affection of his family	19:45
	scattered or dissipated,	19:49
	with life shifted,	19:51
	and there the wretch,	19:53
	the wretched Job in his suffering	19:55
	wrestled with the problem,	19:59
	the mystery of suffering,	20:01
	and life	20:04
	needed explanation.	20:09
	This happens to us all.	20:13
	So teach us to number our days,	20:16
	that in the midst of the mysteries,	20:22
	the puzzles, the baffling days	20:25
	that come and go,	20:30
	we may be associated with Him who abides.	20:34
	Count the days when great events are shaping.	20:41
	Perhaps we give too much thought	20:50
	to the calendar	20:54
	as it is presently arranged.	20:56
	We call January the first month of the new year.	21:00
	It could very well be the last month	21:06
	of the mos significant period of one's life.	21:09
	Or the beginning of new era	21:14
	might possibly be this coming April	21:16
	rather than January.	21:18
	Our mechanical arrangement	21:21
	does not fit into the neat patterns.	21:25
	This neat pattern of mechanical arrangement	21:30
	does not fit the needs of man.	21:33
	As you look backward,	21:37
	one recognizes certain pinnacle years	21:40
	that stand above the ordinary levels	21:44
	of the centuries	21:49
	like high mountain peaks	21:50
	above the ranges around them.	21:53
	In the Bible, one of the pinnacle eras	21:58
	is the period of the Exodus.	22:01
	When not only did enslaved people	22:05
	achieve their freedom from bondage,	22:09
	but a new nation was born,	22:13
	and a people entered into a great covenant relationship	22:17
	with their God.	22:22
	And around that covenant relationship	22:25
	has been built the mighty faith	22:27
	into which many of us of this very day have entered,	22:31
	and to which we turn to find the meaning	22:37
	of our great religious traditions	22:41
	here in our Western world	22:45
	in the modern centuries.	22:47
	In the Bible also is reported	22:51
	the coming of our Lord	22:53
	in the great event that we describe as the Advent,	22:56
	the coming of God Himself,	23:00
	and a new covenant was established	23:03
	between man and God.	23:06
	You could supply for yourselves	23:11
	many other examples of great discoveries,	23:13
	of great events as they are foretold	23:17
	and as they shape up and as they occur.	23:21
	Some of us feel that perhaps we are today	23:26
	upon the threshold of another great era.	23:29
	We're struggling to find a name for it.	23:35
	Already we're using the term the Space Era,	23:39
	though we're not sure that is an accurate term,	23:43
	nor are we certain	23:47
	that it will serve our purposes very long.	23:48
	Whatever we may call it,	23:53
	this is no ordinary time.	23:55
	Let us be wise enough to count the days.	23:58
	As we stand here expectantly,	24:04
	not only at the beginning of a calendar year,	24:08
	but at the beginning of another era	24:11
	in man's life on the planet Earth.	24:15
	Do you recall James Hilton's "Lost Horizon"?	24:21
	Think with me for a moment	24:29
	of the words spoken in a Tibetan lamasery	24:31
	by the head lama,	24:35
	addressed to a person called Conway,	24:39
	a British visitor whom the head lama	24:44
	had chosen for his own successor.	24:48
	To Conway, the lama said:	24:51
	The years for you here will come and go,	24:53
	and you will pass from fleshly enjoyments	25:00
	into austerer,	25:03
	but no less satisfying realms.	25:06
	You may lose the keenness of muscle and appetite,	25:09
	but there will be gain to match your loss.	25:15
	You will achieve a calmness and profundity,	25:20
	a ripeness and wisdom,	25:25
	and a clear enchantment of memory.	25:28
	Most precious of all,	25:33
	you will have time.	25:36
	That rare and lovely gift	25:39
	that your Western countries have lost,	25:43
	the more they pursue it.	25:46
	With that quotation from the writing	25:52
	of James Hilton in the background,	25:54
	may I address two or three direct questions	25:58
	in this concluding moment	26:03
	to each of you, my fellow calendar watchers?	26:06
	For us, too, the years come and go.	26:12
	We also are conscious of our losses.	26:17
	We know we cannot return to our former days.	26:20
	What gains do we have to match the losses?	26:26
	Any calmness?	26:33
	Any profundity?	26:36
	Any ripeness and wisdom?	26:39
	Any enchanting memories?	26:44
	Are we aware of ripening	26:49
	and deepening relationships with Him	26:51
	who measured a thousand years	26:55
	in terms of a watch in the night?	26:58
	My fellow mortals,	27:04
	are you listening at the beginning of a new year	27:07
	to Him who is from everlasting to everlasting,	27:12
	who speaks the truth that abides,	27:18
	and who promises	27:24
	the one and abiding place,	27:26
	the one sure abiding place	27:31
	to all	27:38
	men?	27:41
	Let us pray.	27:44
	O Thou who art the eternal God,	27:51
	Thou who art from everlasting to everlasting,	27:56
	behold us as we stand uncertainly,	28:02
	and yet expectantly, at this moment,	28:06
	not knowing what tomorrow shall bring to us,	28:10
	and yet certain that whatever comes,	28:14
	we can rest	28:18
	in Thee.	28:21
	Supply us therefore with the needed strength of body,	28:24
	the needed clarity of mind,	28:30
	and the needed dedication of spirit,	28:32
	to match all that this new year	28:37
	shall require.	28:42
	In the spirit and name of Jesus Christ our Lord.	28:45
	And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,	28:51
	and the love of God the Father,	28:55
	and the communion of the Holy Spirit	28:58
	be with you all.	29:01

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Title:

W. Arthur Kale - "Calendar Watching" (January 3, 1965)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4474bs8j

Date:

January 3, 1965

Speaker:

Kale, W. Arthur

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0279
ref5763_phi
uachapelsermaud
duke:628287
dcrau002278
ark:/87924/r4474bs8j
6474cede-422f-4a6d-8dca-11df90adf48b

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W. Arthur Kale - "Calendar Watching" (January 3, 1965)

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