Spectrum of Spirit: A Digital Sanctuary for Spiritual Discourse and Community

The "Spectrum of Spirit" blog features insightful articles, essays, and reflections penned by the founder, Paul, and diverse guest contributors. Focusing on contemporary spirituality, the blog offers regular updates with weekly themes and seasonal reflections, fostering ongoing engagement and a deeper understanding of spiritual practices and trends.

Imagine the World Without a Clock?

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Solstice

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9–14 minutes

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Sitting here writing this blog, I find myself and the students I care for staring at the clock, waiting to move from one period to the next. There’s time where the kids challenge me in my positional authority I have over the kids, “it’s not time for that, the time for that is later”. I believe time is both a ruler and a servant, ruling the minds of individuals moving from one activity to another, while also having the ability to guide an individual through their schedule. Unfortunately, in my current work of employment, we all stare at the clock waiting for the school day to end. One thing I have found myself reflecting on is the chaos some of our students feel when the campus Wi-Fi is struggling. The clocks stop working, the kids have less accessibility to their electronics, and even I am left with not much to do. I find myself napping, taking walks to the beach, and then coming back to campus to do the same thing on repeat. For this brief period, schedules dissolve into the cloud, and the faculty and students are held down by minutes and hours, but moments.

I believe time is elusive as much as it is definitive. Time is an ideal used to distinguish “true” and “false” narratives, sectioned off to create “recess” and “study time”, a descriptive term to associate with beauty. However, I would like to think that when time is no longer the monkey on our back, the pressure cooker, the catalyst to a world without end, we can confront the experiences and perspectives that live in each moment. The Fall Equinox is approaching, a season of life is encroaching, and hopefully our mind can be enriched once more.

Clocked Truth

Over the summer I worked at a summer session at another boarding school. One of the weekends I had to work, the organization hired a performer from New York, a mentalist who sure knocked us off our feet. The way he would engage with audience members past and present without seeing them made me really wonder what it means to understand someone. However, I did become a little hesitant when he started to predict some people’s future. I found this act to be very limiting, promoting false hope, and boxing people in boxes they never confessed to wanting to be in. Although I don’t know the relationship between the mentalist and the participants in the performance, I remember the disappointment one of my peers had when they didn’t hear what was predicted for them. After the disappointment of the timetable on the predicted event, the excitement disappeared, the wonder left their eyes, and the joy dissipated from their steps. The illusion of seeing the future, seeing time, was uncovered.

On the Stay Spiritual Channel, James and Justin react to a video claiming to know humanity’s highest value, the truth1. After the first clip, James hopes that teaser was enough to encourage the audience to watch the original video from Leo Gura, 3.5 hours of getting into truth2. James reveals him and Justin had both watched the video this week, recognizing it made both of them feel certain things, struggles, and things that prevent them from truth3. James talks about all the eyeballs on all the social medias talking about all the things that are going on in the world and questions how many views a video exploring the highest value of truth might get4. James believes this shows there are not many people searching what the highest value is, or what the deepest insights on truth5. Justin takes this to mean humanity has a long way to go and the explanation Leo Gura gives in his video prove to him that people don’t care about the truth6.

I’ve always felt the truth to be comical. When I was a child, I was told the “truth” that Santa dropped my Christmas gifts off and the Tooth Fairy gave me money for me losing a tooth. As I grew older, my parents enlightened me to the “truth”, they put Christmas gifts under the Christmas Tree, and they put money under my pillow for losing a tooth. I imagine the idea of what was true and not true at that age was not based on “facts”, but on trust. If I trusted the source, my parents, my coach, my teacher, I took what they said and did as “true”, “right”, “good”. As we grow older, as the clock ticks, I believe we have to grapple with the mythologies, the stories we have constructed of what our past experiences were and how our current understanding may be influenced by the past. In conversations with others, I believe people tend to weigh certain memories more than others, and when more information is revealed about an event, an event lost to the hours and minutes of the day, it can leave people exposed, uncovered, and naked. I believe timelines are not linear, they are like spirals, like a clock. Experiences move around us, the center of a dial, and we interpret them differently based on one’s current perspective, the interplay of one’s minute hand and hour hand, the point where “truth” is clocked.

Clocked Connection

I’ve never experienced an intense rivalry in my life. One of the most storied rivalries where I grew up was College Men’s Basketball, UNC vs. Duke. I never ended up picking a team, I band wagoned with whoever was the better team that year. I saw both sides, people not inviting Blue Devil fans into their house to watch a sporting event, Tar Heel fans bolstering all their gear the day after a close win, etc. I found this rivalry to be quite trivial, but I didn’t understand the history. Looking at the rivalry now, I can make sense of the deep attachment some may feel towards one of these two teams, but I wonder if there is possibility for even stronger affinity if these sides were removed. If people came together to watch an entertaining competition, a memorable game, would this amplify or quell the intensity that comes from a sporting event? Is there potential for unexpected encounters between supposed rivals, can bring a beneficial encounter for both parties?

On CULTURAL TV, I found some highlights between Rio Peixense and Italo Braseilero, an intense commentary on U16 soccer7. The video opens up showing Ryan being the person who scored the only goal in the match, the only goal for Rio Peixense as they won 1-08. About a minute in, a wing for Italo Rio drives up the right side of the field and strikes a shot from outside the box, the ball missing towards the right of the goal9. The video continues with a lot of failed attempts to score, and expressive kids trying their best to perform well and bring energy to their team10 .The commentator is very engaged 30 minutes into the game, I do not understand the language they are speaking, but I can tell from the inflection in his voice, this game matters to him11. The two teams go scoreless and head to the second half12. At almost 15 minutes into the second half, a corner kick goes up from the right side of the field, and one of the attackers sweeps in with his right foot to pop the ball over the goalies hands into the net13. The commentator exudes with excitement as the camera pans onto the player who kicked the goal in, #19, Ryan. His teammates were running around screaming with the commentator, energy and passion flying all around the kids’ faces14. Italo makes a couple pushes towards the end, and gets close to the goal, but can’t get anything to go15. The game ends and the players of Italo look devastated at the 80+ minutes of soccer they just played, which ended in a defeat16.

I believe innovation doesn’t exist without competition. The innovation the kids showed on the field was in reaction to them having difficulty to score. Even if one could consider the play traditional, the unique skillset of every player adds nuance to a traditional game. This is my philosophy when it comes to coaching, highlighting the one of a kind ability in each and every one of my players to fit within the whole, sometimes traditional, system. The constant wrestle of sticking to what works, tradition, and trying to find new ways of expression with different understanding, innovation, collide in practice, games, and championships to show who performed and received a favorable outcome. I believe there is a lot of power in this type of perspective, where spectators view a competition outside of the “who is the greatest” lens, but inside of the “how is this person performing their best today”. I believe this endless assessment of one’s own performance and the performance of their favorite sports teams, might break down the barriers of who is the G.O.A.T, who is the best team, and who one doesn’t like based on a historical tradition. I believe the victory exists before the final whistle, before the fat lady sings, before the clock cuts off, but in the connection spectators feel with the players, the connection players feel with their competitors, and the connection competitors feel with their moments of performance.

Clocked Voice

“Be fruitful and multiply”. One of the many instructions god gives Adam and Eve and later on Noah in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. There have been many interpretations of this verse, but for this section, I would like to think god is commanding the beginnings of humanity to create and to inspire others to create. Create all types of things, from new life and new ways of living to new food and new beautiful works. However, after god told Adam and Eve to create, a long time after, god decided to destroy what was created, giving humanity a renaissance of another new beginning, and maybe approach life in a new way. God rewrapped its commandment to Adam and Eve, and gave a very similar, maybe even the same command to Noah after him and his family are some of the few humans left on earth. There is more to explore from an exegesis standpoint, however, that is not the purpose of this section. God’s voice spiraled throughout time, repeating similar phrases to different generations, crafting, breaking, and rewrapping sayings to live within each era’s reality.

On the Artistic Journey channel, they released a cute video on how to make a handmade sunflower bouquet17. They start the video off by cutting a huge piece of wrapping paper into smaller parts18. The artist then takes the paper and folds and creases it to fit the flower within the mold19. They then pinch the paper around the stem of the flower and seal the pinch with Scotch tape20. They spruce up the bottom of the paper around the stem to flare out on the bottom of the flower, the top of the paper creating a V shape to hold the flower in21. The artist then take a second piece of paper from the previous cut, and folds, creases and tapes the paper wider and more fanned out than the first piece of paper22. The creator repeats the process with a third piece of paper, sealing it evenly around the stem, the paper around the stem dense and thick23. They then make a paper ribbon and tape it on the stem towards the right side of where the flowerhead is facing, covering up the previous folds from the first three pieces of paper24. The artist takes a second ribbon and places it on the left side of where the flowerhead is facing25. The creator then takes three more pieces of paper to wrap around the ribbons, cylinder like26. They then finish the masterpiece, adding accessories to personalize the bouquet27.

The artist repeated simple acts of cutting and folding, meshing what was once a large piece of decorative paper into a gorgeous bouquet. They intentionally crafted the and cut the paper to the dimensions they wanted to represent the beauty they wanted. They cut and broke the paper into shreds, splitting up what was once whole to multiply into something new. They carefully wrapped and taped the newly sized paper to hold the main event, the sunflower. The reality of a large sheet of paper no longer existed, now what was experienced was a handmade paper bouquet, filled with care and attention to detail. I believe this small example is symbolic of humanity. I believe it’s important for people to find what they feel is missing, break apart what is there, and re-wrap it so the past harm is removed from one’s current experience. I believe it’s important to wrap and tie the change, freeze it and make it sustainable. I believe this could make life beautiful, a fruitful bouquet of one’s existence, an artifact multiplying the memories of a moment, clocking the voice of one’s expression.

Clocked Eternity

Bring imagination. Post your world. Close without regret. Clock your declarations. Live in your truth. Consider vanishing traditional connections. Choose your voice. Find your eternal truth. Embrace understanding yourself. Experience living in wild diversity. Express internal collisions with those you trust. Originate your culture. Let your beauty echo. Make sense of your mystery. Own your soul. Hand it over to your twin.

Bibliography

  1. Stay Spiritual, “Why Truth Matters I Humanities Highest Value,” YouTube, September 16, 2025, accessed September 18, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JcMhIqBxYg&t=103s. ↩︎
  2. Stay Spiritual, ↩︎
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  7. CULTURAL TV, “Melhores momentos Copa SC Sub 16 Rio Peixense 1 x 0 Ítalo Brasileiro,” YouTube, September 14, 2025, accessed September 18, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzfqbfGHLms&t=66s. ↩︎
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  17. Artistic Journey, “🌻 How to Wrap a Gorgeous Handmade Sunflower Bouquet | Easy DIY Tutorial 🌻,” YouTube, September 14, 2025, accessed September 18, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6fO6Lrji2s&t=3s. ↩︎
  18. Artistic Journey, ↩︎
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