�鶹��

Available for over a year

Good morning. Today the 30th March is the 89th day of the year, 90th in leap years, and in the Gregorian calendar 276 days remain until the end of the year. We live in a culture that is obsessed with the passage of time. We have calendars, watches, phones, clocks and apps make sure we know the exact time, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. Yet we can never quite pin time down, and we often end up trying to claw it back. The clocks went forward on Sunday and for many the extra hour of sun is a welcome addition. The days get longer and we feel that since ‘time flies’ we can get more done. But for some people time doesn’t fly at all. Take those affected by the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust enquiry, who’ve waited five years to know what happened their babies. Or the survivors of the Grenfell fire. Nearly six years on, the official inquiry into that continues. This week government figures responsible for fire safety at the time are due to give evidence. We need to bear in mind that for those affected by this grief and uncertainty, time may well have stood still. In her short poem Passing Time, Maya Angelou suggests that we get caught up in the daily business of living and we don’t always realise how much time has passed and how much we and others have changed. Instead of seizing the day, she suggests, maybe we should reflect more on what the passing day means. From a mathematical point of view, time is measured from the rotation of the earth and its revolution around the sun but we do make adjustments, for example, we add that extra day in February every four years. And we can also make adjustments to help us understand how time affects others. People often consider time as a relentless and cruel force but it is always valuable (perhaps this is why we are so fixated on it) and we can choose to use it at our own discretion and for our own development. While we cannot influence the flow of time, we can attempt to get the most out of it. In the book of Colossians it says, ‘Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time”. Redeeming the time is related to wisdom in accordance with God and how we ‘live’. So, we are encouraged to live in awareness of time and make the most of the time we have.