thought for the week

It is said that time is a great healer - and I am sure that is true. However, the benefit of time as a healer is that it acts as a filter or screen through which to view events or relationships which we have found difficult or painful. For this to work most effectively it is essential to have a complete break from these issues and to come back to them with fresh eyes and a new perspective, having focused on something else for a period.

The season of Lent is an opportunity to focus on something different - to take a step away from the troubles and irritations of everyday life and contemplate an "otherness".

The essential point of stepping away and focussing on something else is that it allows a fresh approach to those issues which have troubled us; an approach that is simply not possible if we have remained in contact with them all along. This step away needs to be of sufficient duration to allow a distance and objectivity upon return and cannot be rushed. Otherwise one starts where one left off.

Ian Miller