I contributed the Thought for the Day on Radio Ulster on Monday 7 July.
You can listen here, or read the text below.
The Photograph and the Clock
You can’t stop the clock. That’s a phrase we’ve all heard before. It reminds us that we can’t prevent the passage of time.
In distance running, you can’t escape that unstoppable clock. Just think of the marathon runner, striving to break a time barrier, like three hours. The runner who finishes the marathon in 3 hours, 1 second may feel anguish, even grief.
Today, runners wear high tech GPS watches. These sophisticated clocks allow you, with one glance at your wrist, to know how far you have run, and even your pace per mile.
Recently a friend posted an old photograph on social media. Eleven men, plimsols on their feet, are running up a dirt road in North Belfast. Four of them wear vests emblazoned with the letters N.B.H., indicating that they are members of the North Belfast Harriers. This running club, founded in 1896, is one of the oldest on the island of Ireland.
The photograph generated some social media chat, with most people trying to work out when and where it was taken. There was some consensus that the time was early in the twentieth century, and that the Waterworks could be glimpsed, glimmering in the background. A couple people were even able to identify several of the athletes.
The men are not racing; there are no numbers on their vests. There also are no watches on their wrists; the technology did not exist in those days. The clock those men ran by would have been a hand-held stopwatch, its message conveyed by a coach or official shouting from the sidelines.
To a man, every single one of them is smiling. Some of them are grinning in the direction of the camera; others look rather bemused that their training session should be photographed; a couple are laughing.
The passage of time brings its own smiles; its own grief. The clock may be unstoppable. But the smiles of those North Belfast men tell me that the passage of time need not intrude on the joy of doing what you love.
(Image courtesy of Margaret Stephens)