The season of Advent
"From a Railway Carriage” by Robert Louis Stevenson
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
I wonder how many of us have hung up a calendar this week, with twenty-four little flaps on the front so that, each day, in the run up to Christmas we can open one. Perhaps behind each door there will be a little festive image, possibly a chocolate if we are slightly more upmarket, but the purpose is to remind us that Christmas is coming. Advent calendars were invented by Gerhard Lang and when he was a child, his mother gave him twenty-four cookies at the start of December so that he could eat one each day. This served as his inspiration to create the first printed advent calendar in 1908.
The season of Advent literally means coming, as we build up to the coming of Christmas. Christians use these next four weeks to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and to prepare themselves. Yesterday evening in Chapel, we celebrated the first Sunday in Advent. Other faiths have similar periods of reflection and anticipation such as Ramadan in Islam, Navarati in Hinduism, Hannukkah in Judaism and Vassa in Buddishm. These are periods of time of different lengths with different traditions in which the job is to do what we need to do so we’re ready.
I have mentioned before, that one of my favourite subatomic particles is the muon. Similar to an electron, but 207 times heavier, muons are produced when cosmic rays collide with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. But what is interesting is that muons have a very short lifetime: just 2.2 microseconds so… in a fraction of a blink of an eye, they have been created - and then they’re gone.
What is amazing though, is that muons, which travel close to the speed of light, should only be able to cover about 500m before they die. Yet, they can pass all the way through the earth’s atmosphere and penetrate deep into rocks below our feet - much further than half a km. The reason that muons are able to go so far is because, at their speed, time passes more slowly. Were it not for what is called time dilation – time slowing down for particles moving at almost speed of light, they would never reach us….but it does and so they do.
One of the most important lessons we learn in a School like this, is how to use our time well. We have a multitude of commitments, different subjects and activities, yet we also need to spend time with friends and family, to sleep, relax and so much more. Some tasks may take us longer than they do other people, some activities are more important to us than others, but they all take time and they all need to be done. But what is the same for all of us is the time we have. Unlike the fast-moving muon, for all of us, a day lasts 24 hours, no more no less; we all have two weeks of term left…time won’t speed up or slow down for any of us but how we choose to use our time will be different for each of us. Some of us will procrastinate, choose our favourite tasks over the ones we like less, while others will be making sure that they know exactly what needs to be done over the holidays, sorting our difficulties now, pushing on through the December tiredness and so on.
The poem that Phoebe read a moment ago isn’t directly about time, rather it’s about the view from a train window. As the passenger looks out, they see scenes flashing past, one after the other, the people, the buildings, the animals…all gone in a moment before the next one comes along. Busy life can sometimes feel like that: deadline after deadline, task after task and if we’re not careful and don’t think about how we use our time, there is a risk that we don’t engage with anything, or indeed anyone, properly. We need to learn to use our time effectively so that we take the most out of the opportunities and tasks we have, and look after ourselves too…and there are folk able to help us if we need it.
When they come, we’ll spend the holidays in different ways but in the UK, I suspect Christmas TV may feature the odd James Bond film – as it does most years. One of the final lines in the last film, a Time to Die, talks about time: The proper function of all of us, says the wise character called M, is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. Let’s use the next two weeks really well.