I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town of 2,500-2,800 inhabitants named Weatherly. Originally the town’s name was Black Creek, so named because of the darkened waters of the stream (here it would be a river) running through the middle of town. It seems the state tree, the hemlock, had a role in making this stream’s water so dark.
In the 1840’s a clock maker named David Weatherly came along to work as an engineer on the local Incline Plane railroad. For some reason he concocted the idea that the town might be named Weatherly if he made them a clock. For some reason the local citizenry accepted the offer. Perhaps town clocks set communities apart as somehow better than clock less ones. Whatever the reason, the name was changed and shortly afterward David Weatherly disappeared never to be heard from again.
But alas, worry not, O reader of this jotting! People in Weatherly still went to work on time, had dinner at the appointed hour, woke and rested at the proper times. Then, to their surprise, they had four town clocks much larger and higher than they ever could have anticipated. Charles Schwab, not the financial guy, but a wealthy steel magnate, fifty years after David Weatherly’s failed quid pro quo, built the town a high school. The school was placed on the top of the tallest hill in town. It was three stories high capped with a tall ….you guessed it…..clock tower with a giant clock on all four sides. Yours truly graduated from this institution seventy-one years later. In fact, my educational career began in the basement in a newly renovated coal bin transformed into a kindergarten class,
The story has a biblical tone to it, doesn’t it? A beginning, a promise, a hope, a promise and hope unfulfilled, then a fulfillment in a far different and better way. Joseph was eventually reunited with his family, Israel after a long and difficult journey finally became a nation, the long-sought Messiah came, exceeding the original prophetic job description.
The Bible has meant so much to Judaism and Christianity (we are often referred to as “People of the book”), because its stories and understanding of God’s relationship with God’s people are so descriptive of how life and faith are lived and experienced.
Not all life’s stories turn out with happier than anticipated endings. The school’s clock tower now reigns over an abandoned building with broken windows, peeled and peeling paint, and a flock of turkey buzzards as the lone inhabitants. Ah, there is something biblical here as well. Women going to a tomb after witnessing a horrible death and end to their hopes. With buildings and some of our hopes and dreams, there are often endings. With faith and God endings are never the end. We can lament sad endings. We need not ever fear the endings have the final word.