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FROM REVEREND ROBIN                                                                  

The 2nd February officially marks the end of the Christmas season with Candlemas;  the point 40 days after Christmas when the Christ child is presented to the Temple and Mary is purified. Although with Christmas starting earlier and earlier every year, I imagine yours and I confess my tree came down at the start of Epiphany (6th January).

I have never had a Christmas tree last long enough to make it much into January without looking like a big stick stuck in a pot and I find January is a time of looking forward to the new year not back at the last. Of course, with February being a short month we will soon find ourselves in March and think ‘goodness this year is flying by’ and before we know it, we will be panicking because Christmas is just around the corner.

Time is a funny thing; a minute can feel like an hour when waiting for something and an hour can feel like a minute when you are having fun. Of course, time doesn’t change, a minute is still a minute, and an hour is still an hour, but how we choose to spend those moments has a very real impact on our lives and our perceptions of what is happening.

Time is precious, time with loved ones, time doing things we love, time just being in the moment.

One of the things I don’t think we do enough of as a species is just stopping and doing nothing but being in the moment. For those of you with pets, how many times a day do you see your fluffy friend doing absolutely nothing? How many times do you drive over the moors and see animals just lying down? In countless programmes voiced by the wonderful David Attenborough we see time and time again animals just lying down doing nothing (of course that is when they are not running/swimming/crawling for their lives!).

It seems like we are the only ones in creation that can’t relax.

What needs to be done will still need to be done, and even after you have done it there will always be something else that needs doing. In our modern day and age, we can easily fill a list of jobs and build on that list quicker than we complete it. So, stop for a moment.

Shut your eyes. Take a deliberate moment in the day to just be. In the voice of David Attenborough “And here we see the majestic human in its natural habitat, taking some time to be still. Having worked hard at school, or at their job, they have earned this rest. And while there is a mountain of things still to do, they know it will be done eventually.” Of course, remembering I am a priest and not a wildlife presenter I will say this. God rested! That seventh day was there for a reason.

We cannot expect to work every hour of the day, every day of the week, if even God our creator stopped for a moment.

Jesus rested! Countless times he went to a quiet place away from the crowds, away from the hustle and bustle, to rest and pray.

The disciples rested, the prophets and saints rested. And so must we.  Amen.

 

 

 

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