Welcome back
It was really lovely to welcome the students (and their families) back to School this week. The grounds have certainly been very quiet over the past eight weeks. I do hope that you and your family had a blessed Christmas and had a chance to relax and enjoy each other’s company.
A new School year is before us, the last in another decade. Our children are another year older which only means one thing, we are getting older as well.
I read an interesting article over the holidays about time. It suggested that there are two types of time, actual time which is unchanging, and mind time, or our perception of time. Our perception of time changes the busier or the fuller our lives. For example, for some the Christmas holiday probably went incredibly slowly and you couldn’t wait for our children to start School again, while for others, it was gone in the blink of an eye.
In Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 (a book in the Bible’s Old Testament) the writer begins a poetic description of time, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” The writer points out that we each have an allotted amount of time. The question for us to consider is, “How will we use the time given to us?”
At our beginning of year service, the new Student Leaders were inducted by the Bishop. Before making their pledge, at the leadership camp on the long weekend they were challenged to think about what leadership actually is. For us at St Paul’s School, leadership is about servanthood. It is about putting others first, seeking ways to make a positive difference in the lives of the people we come across and the communities we live in.
This concept of leadership (or call to use our time wisely) is captured in our School’s purpose statement: to prepare resilient, global citizens, who are innovative thinkers, with a heart for servant leadership.
While this year’s Student Leaders, witnessed by the greater community in the Walker Centre on Wednesday, made a commitment to serve, we are all ultimately called to make a positive difference to others. We each have an allotted amount of time. Our lives will be fuller, richer, and filled with greater joy when we chose to use our time wisely in service of others.
As the new year begins, I encourage all our students (and members of our greater community) to make good use of the time we have been given – be a blessing to others.
