TONI TALKS | A WIDER LENS | IT’S ABOUT TIME
Tale As Old As Time
The clock is ticking and time will tell its tale so sync your story with what’s happening now to set it straight before it’s too late
“Are you willing to eliminate the word impossible from your vocabulary?”
Humor Me
I’m assuming creative license to state my case. This post is about the power of an influential story. Read on to learn how relentlessly ➖ challenging conventional wisdom ➖ reshaped the realm of reality.
The 15th Century Roman Pontiff, Pope Gregory XIII, instigated a ballsy action that turned back time. This conclusion was drawn from a classroom lesson taught more than 50 years ago.
Back in the day, as a precocious third grader at Holy Angels Cathedral, Sister Delores chastised me for blasphemy. In retrospect, she was kinda right. My unmuted mouth released mayhem in the minds of innocent 8-year-olds.
The good sister was a great teacher. Her method of instruction entailed speaking in parables, which was what Jesus would do. One sunny morning the devil delivered a dark description.
Satan
Dove into the details of a discussion on the origins of the Roman Catholic calendar. He saw me innocently sitting there, intently listening. That’s when it happened.
The wheels started turning and I morphed into a teeny weeny willing vessel that amplified his words. After Sister Delores finished her explanation she asked for questions. I raised my hand and waited to be called on.
My pithy comment landed me in the Mother Superior’s Office. The offense was wrapped up in my claim that the pope concocted a story to have his name go down in history.
Once my motor mouth opened, I couldn’t close it. You’d think all those pious people would have cut me some slack. Seriously! What was uttered, quite literally, came out of the mouth of a babe.
Cutting to the chase, they made sure I was punished. Mother Superior called Father Grass. That was a really big deal because he was the priest who presided over the whole parish.
I was charged. The verdict was guilty as sin. At the time my mother was a public high school teacher. They called her in. She left her class to come and school me. She was embarrassed. It was the first time I’d ever seen her turn red.
Father Grass told my mom to take me home to think about what I’d said. Hence the reason I so vividly remember that day. My mom yelled at me the whole ride home. When she asked me what had possessed me to say such a thing, I didn’t have an answer.
Then Mamma called me a demon. My retort. There’s your answer. I was raised by a religious Black mother. You never talk back. I did it all the time. My dad wasn’t religious. When Daddy got home that night and Mom squealed, he called me a tough little bird.
Then Dad said he was proud of me for thinking for myself. I could always count on him to be firmly in my corner. He always championed my temerity. This infuriated my mother.
Use your imagination to visualize the consequences. Corporal punishment was practiced for the second time that day. I couldn’t sit for a week.
In a nutshell, I contended that the pope floated a story to erase Julius Caesar’s moniker from the Julian calendar.
To my young mind, the Pontiff’s motive was clear. Hence the reason the world references the Gregorian calendar.
My Problem
There’s a fine line between share and scare. That day, I crossed it. Most other days, Sister Delores encouraged my curiosity. I could tell by the look of horror that what I’d shared scared the shit out of her.
Since she didn’t know what to say, Sister Delores yanked me from my desk and marched me down to the principal’s office. All eyes were on me. Just not in the way I’d hope.
The lecture meted out from the Mother Superior was about the importance of filtering. Today, at age 59, I’ve finally figured out that I just need to keep my mouth shut. That’s also on my to-do list for 2024. I have no filter. Especially when I’m addressing a group.
I could fill a very big book with all my verbal slip-ups. These faux-pas’ span my youth, 20s, 30s, 40s, and pretty much all of my 50s. This is the downside of the life of an extreme extrovert.
I’ve struggled mightily to keep the inappropriate thoughts that popped into my head from spilling out of my mouth. Loose lips are my lifelong cross to bear. This is why I love writing. Editing is my saving grace. Excuse the digression.
Wondering, more than a half-century later, if I was on the right track.
Eons after Caesar’s death, Jesuit number crunchers posited that time as quantified by the Julian calendar had gotten wonky. Estimates put it as much as a week off.
In response, the Pontiff tapped Aloysius Lilius to take on the monumental task of remunerating the Julian calendar. To backtrack a bit more, the aforementioned calendar was originally commissioned and named by the infamous ruler, Julius Caesar.
Though no one asked my opinion, I suspect that Pope Gregory XIII took a huge leap of faith, announcing that it was his God-given duty to correct the mistake on the Julian calendar. The undisguised blessing was the ability to rename it.
Regardless of the circumstances, I think my story about a man’s desire for immortality frames what facilitated the 15th-century time change.
A Bit Of Context
The first time change occurred in 700 B.C., this came courtesy of Numa Pompilius. He was the second Roman Emperor. He summarily added two months to the year.
The second change took place in 46 B.C., by none other than the ruler of Rome… Julius Caesar. Dude convinced the Roman Senate, to vote to stop telling time by a lunar cycle. Instead, the empire switched to an Egyptian-styled solar-sourced calendar.
The change was conceived by Caesar’s astrological guru Sosigenes. As an aside, the fact that Caesar was sleeping with an Egyptian probably made him more amenable to the suggestion.
At the end of the day…
Or the year to be exact, the lunar cycle calendar was replaced with the Julian Calendar. This was where the story seemed suspect. Reference my aforementioned loose lips incident.
When called on, I blurted out that once the Pope saw how easy it was for Caesar to change time he tore a page out of the same book. Think about it. I could very well be right.
In hindsight, when I felt the words rise in my throat, I should have closed my mouth, taken a big gulp, and swallowed them.
Having your name go down in the history of time, is my idea of epic legacy planning!
Correct me if I’m wrong. Some might consider this statement sacrilegious, but how hard would it have been to earmark Vatican funds to prove the validity of the Jesuit-oriented number cruncher’s theory?
The Pontiff successfully convinced a subject matter expert to underscore the number crunchers’ findings. His name was Christopher Clavius. His credentials were legit.
At the time, Clavius presided over the mathematicians at the Collegio Romano. He did double duty as a member of the Vatican commission. Combined these facts added up and positioned him as a credible defender for time reformation.
When all was said and done the Jesuits were heralded for their role in correcting an error totaling 11 uncounted minutes per year.
Do The Math
Sosigenes calculated the value of a year as 365.25 days. However, the latter calculation 365.242199 days, was lauded for arithmetic precision.
On behalf of all the right-brain thinkers of the world. WTF? This is why left-brainers amass all the money. They understand that compounding affects more than time.
This is the reason why the financial crowd has mega-money. It’s also why artists can barely rub two coins together. I guess the rub, pun intended, is that we’re rich in creativity!
Conclusion
The Gregorian calendar ➖ wink… wink ➖was introduced on Friday, October 15th, 1582. It lopped a full 10 days off that year.
The reform has been adopted worldwide. There were a few holdouts. The UK waited until 1752. Russia held out until 1918. Interestingly, Greece drew a line in the sand that wasn’t erased for five centuries.
They got the memo and kept throwing it in the trash.
Yet, Pope Gregory XIII got the last word. In time, Greece finally relented. In 1923, the Gregorian Calendar became the country’s national standard.
This is the power of a story — it literally — turned back time.
Parting Thought
Nothing is impossible if a mortal, by sheer will, could craft a story that changed the history of time. Ask yourself: What’s stopping you from rewriting your reality? Now, position your fingers on the keyboard➖ Ready… Set… WRITE!
References
- In the Eye of the Storm: A Biography of Gregory the Great — November 30, 2021 by Sigrid Grabner
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Clavius
- Century’s End: an orientation manual toward the year 2000 by Schwartz, Hillel, 1996 Doubleday
- Caesar: Life of a Colossus, January 28, 2008 by Adrian Goldsworthy
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sosigenes-of-Alexandria
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numa_Pompilius
- https://www.britannica.com/story/ten-days-that-vanished-the-switch-to-the-gregorian-calendar
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
🎤About Me ➖ Toni Greathouse (moniker) Toni the Talker ➖ 🤔
Racing toward age 60. Living every day like it’s my last. Planning like I’ll be here 60 more. Taking my own advice. Rewriting my reality. Leaving a legacy that will outlive me.
