A time for everything ….
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven;
(Ecclesiates 3:1)
If you have taken the time to read this introduction to our November newsletter you will already have been the beneficiary of an extra hour to get ready on the Sunday morning of the day that DST (daylight saving time) officially ended for another year. It is claimed that DST was introduced to enable us to make more use of the sunlight during the summer months. Weighted against this there are those who claim to suffer from SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) and I must confess to feeling a little sadder as the nights suddenly begin to draw in at this time of year. SAD was first recognised in 1984 and now a common form of treatment is to use Light Therapy or Natural daylight lightbulbs. For me I haven’t tried any of those but instead I try to get over the initial feeling by looking forward to those days from the end of December onwards when I know that that daylight begins to get longer again. I love the long days and the light of spring and summertime and although we had many rainy days we can still look back on a memorable year of outdoor events whether it was on the Thames, in the Olympic Park or in the New Street Gardens. There was much to celebrate in sun and rain but as King Solomon the writer of Ecclesiastes reflected on his life he uses the phrase ‘under the sun’ at least 29 times and it was mostly in reference to the meaningless nature of mankind’s toil to make things better for himself. However hard we try – when we go it alone without the Lord’s help we are walking in the dark. We are urged to ‘remember our creator’ before the ‘days of trouble come’ and ‘before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark’ (Ecc :12:1-2)
Solomon concludes ‘Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of
man’ (Ecc 12:13) to which Jesus acknowledging this as the greatest commandment also
added the command to ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. (Mark 12:31) We might go through life feeling happy or SAD as the seasons change but we really do have little excuse that we did not have time to do as the Lord commands us.
How will you make use of your time ?
Stuart Beadle
Nov 2012
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