Dunblane Cathedral Magazine January 2008
6 pages
Published by
Dunblane Cathedral
Copyright :
All rights reserved
No.
195 January 2008
COLIN’S NEW YEAR
REFLECTION
http://www.
dunblanecathedral.
org.
ukADDRESS
Trumpet Call
“We go through the
motions of waking,
working, eating, relaxing, more conscious
of the minutes than
the years.
We feel the...
[More]
No.
195 January 2008
COLIN’S NEW YEAR
REFLECTION
http://www.
dunblanecathedral.
org.
ukADDRESS
Trumpet Call
“We go through the
motions of waking,
working, eating, relaxing, more conscious
of the minutes than
the years.
We feel the
tyranny of the clock
but forget the larger
calendar of a life”
IT’S January, the beginning
of another year.
So here’s a
story about time, related by
Jonathan Sacks, the Chief
Rabbi.
Two elderly Jews
who haven’t seen each other
in fifty years meet, slowly
recognise one another and
embrace.
They go back to the
apartment of one of them to
talk about the days long ago.
Time
The conversation goes on
for hours.
Night falls.
One
asks the other, “Look at your
watch.
What time is it?” “I
don’t have a watch,” says the
second.
“Then look at the
clock.
” “I don’t have a clock.
”
“Then how do you tell the
time?”
“You see that trumpet in the
corner? That’s how I tell the
time.
” “You’re crazy,” says the
first, “How can you tell the
time with a trumpet?” “I’ll
show you.
” He picks up the
trumpet, opens the window
and blows a deafening blast.
Thirty seconds later, an
angry neighbour shouts
out, “It’s two-thirty in the
morning, and you’re playing
the trumpet?” The man turns
to his friend and says, “You
see? That’s how you tell the
time with a trumpet!”
The New Year
And that, says Jonathan Sacks
(tongue in cheek perhaps?)
is why Jewish people have
always blown a ram’s horn to
celebrate their New Year.
It is
God’s wake up call, his way
of asking us, “Do you know
what time it is? This life I
have given you, how have
you used it? For yourself, or
for others? To hurt or to heal?
What have you done with the
year you were given twelve
months ago? What will be
your entry in the Book of
Life?”
clock but forget the larger
calendar of a life.
Fading Dreams
As the years pass, all too often
werenouncethedreamsofour
youth and settle for a routine
which oscillates between
the escape from boredom
called work, and the escape
from work called leisure.
Sometimes it takes a jolt - a
car crash, an illness, a crisis
- to make us ask, Who am I
and why am I here? What am
I doing with my life?
These are the questions
which always hover in the
air at the start of a new year.
Time is the greatest gift we
have, and one of the few gifts
we are given on equal terms.
Whether we are rich or poor,
powerful or powerless, there
are only 24 hours in a day,
and a span of years that is all
too short.
Choices
For each of us there will be a
future we will not see, dreams
that can never be realised,
hopes that will remain
unfulfilled.
Therefore, we
have to make choices, and
the most decisive one will be
how we use our time.
Once asked, the question
almost answers itself.
No one
ever died wishing he or she
had spent more time at the
office or regretting the lack
of the latest mobile phone.
Most of the wants we chase
after are artificially contrived,
and many of the things we
have no time for - family
meals, long walks with our
children, helping strangers,
saying thank you to those we
love - are of the essence of a
life well lived.
Once a year we need that
trumpet-call to remember
time and use it to make a
difference, to truly live and
love.
Colin G McIntosh
The Editorial Team
would like to wish
all our readers a
happy and peaceful
New Year
We go through life for much
of the time half-asleep.
Day
follows day in a daze.
We
go through the motions of
waking, working, eating,
relaxing, more conscious of
the minutes than the years.
We feel the tyranny of the
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