The days have gone down in the West
There was a time when the passage of the day was reckoned by the movement of the sun which God made to rule the day, and was measured out by the ringing of the parish church bells. For a thousand years, the church bells called us to worship and tolled our passing out of this life.

But for us moderns, instead of having the sun's rule, we have the Secretary of Transportation telling us what time it is in our district, which was set up for "the convenience of commerce."* Instead of living our lives to the sound of the church bells, we change our clocks for the civic virtue of saving energy.

Every time we go on daylight saving time I pitch a little fit because daylight saving time reminds me of the death of Christendom in the west, and the fact that I and my children will most likely not live to see its resurrection.



This touches on a discussion going on at Gideon's blog about different flavors of the conservative movement. Dave Koyzis mentions that conservatives lack an "animating vision of life." If we see Old World Conservatism as a last desperate effort to preserve Christendom, it gives us a clue as to why we are so ineffective at communication our vision. Either we've forgotten what it looks like ourselves since it has been dead and gone for so long, or we just have not found a good way to communicate it to the modern mindset.