On The Mighty Hour: The Metaphysis of Time, Space, and Love
I believe that the hour is the most basic and powerful unit of time. Storytelling seems tied to the hour. Its use in the Bible, and throughout literature, songs, movies and television series, occurs over and over again.
Unlike the hour, seconds, weeks, and months are practical measurements. The second is recognized in the quick reactions of a race car driver or pilot, or an ordinary driver avoiding a head on collision. We can measure fractions of a second down to a billionth—the nanosecond.
Yet life begins and (hopefully) flourishes through each hour of our short, precious existence.
Used nearly 100 times in the King James Bible, here are some examples:
In John 2:4 at the Wedding Feast at Cana, Christ says to his mother—who presses her son to help with the dwindling supply of wine—“Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane—Mark 14:32—And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him…. And later, “Peter, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour?”
Last supper— John 13:1: It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
We acknowledge the great line from the beloved hymn, “Amazing Grace:” “…How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed!” And then the same line is utilized in a novel by Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed.
Final Hour is Dean Koontz’s story of a surfer who can see the darkest secrets of whomever she touches, and soon sees and feels the worst of the worst in this dark suspense story.
The Agatha Christie Hour: Ten episodes for Television based on her short stories!
In popular music there’s Frank Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and Wilson Pickett’s “The Midnight Hour.”
The Witching Hour has been portrayed as titles in several books and movies. The most recent is a 2025 horror film with the late actor Michael Madsen. The story lives up to the witching hour’s meaning—evil, afoot after midnight.
One of the most damning uses of the hour comes in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Star Trek—my favorite TV series since I was a kid—stole my heart: “Spock and Kirk in a thousand battles, all in the hour,” I write in my song “Is That So.” The tune attempts to express the sublime quality of the hour and was recently recorded at Bar Lucci’s in Kent, Ohio, October 3, 2025.
The Hail Mary is a real closer. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” Death, a real presence, shapes our passing.
The power of this basic measurement of time shows that life takes root in the hour, grows or either dies, flourishes or withers.
Keep your weather eye out and discover the many ways the Mighty Hour permeates our daily lives. Read Christ’s Divinely appointed time in the New Testament and watch for the creative spirit alive in so many works of art.
Happy Thanksgiving!