Perhaps March could be a time of reflection for you?

15 Mar 2025 • Articles

“Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.” T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets

My 17-year-old self grappled with this text for A Level – the subtlety of “perhaps” in that second line bypassing me I suspect! I have often picked up the Quartets since to reread and contemplate them and have found, as life experiences have kicked in over the years, the poems have become more understandable with different aspects of them jumping out at me. Reflecting on something over time can provide clarity and pull up new, sometimes surprising, thoughts to take you onwards in a different direction.

Reflection is a practice which is embedded in business and life these days. I don’t know about you, but I seem to get asked to fill a form in after every online or face-to-face training or team building session I attend. Self-reflection even comes into some of my relaxation activities! Learning from the past by sitting with it, applying what we’ve learnt to what we need to do now and using such knowledge to inform where we potentially need to be in the future is something we may be conscious of doing in a systematic way or may be a natural thought process for us. Deliberately taking time out to contemplate things is not something many of us probably routinely do but it can empower us to move forwards with greater confidence untangling the things that are weighing us down at a particular moment in time.

The month of March has several reflection moments built in – Lent, World Day of Prayer and Mothering Sunday all make space for reflection.

March 5 th (Ash Wednesday) sees the beginning of the church’s season of Lent which is noticeable often by Easter eggs and hot cross buns being plentiful in shops and, by some people practicing the giving up of something (chocolate, alcohol, etc.) for the duration. The focus of this church season is the 40 days and nights Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by the devil, drawing closer to God and building up to what was to come for him i.e. his time of ministry on Earth and his ultimate sacrifice on the cross for our sin. (You can read the episode in Matthew 4:1 -11; Mark 1: 12-13 and Luke 4: 1-13.) The desert even today is a hard place to be - life threatening - but it can also be liberating. In the Bible it represents the battleground of the soul, a space of formation, not just for Jesus but also for key figures such as Moses, David and Elijah. It was a place where the constraints of social expectation fell away, and the violence and decadence of the cities was left behind. Survival was hard with death and demons lurking there, but the solitude gave time for contemplation, renewal and a hope of transformation. Each year Lent is a time which encourages searching and contemplation. That could be through attending a Lent course in our Uttoxeter Area or delving into a book of the Bible or just asking some questions and sparking a debate on Jesus’ time in that desert. Prayer for the world, our community and those we are close to might also be a part of this.

Certainly, the World Day of Prayer on Friday, March 7 th provides food for thought with a very different perspective on living and worshipping as a Christian. This year it focuses on the Cook Islands giving stories from there and offering up prayers which will be said around our world that day to support those living in that area of the world. The service and resources all come out of careful planning and reflection of past, present and future issues and aspirations of the Cook Islanders themselves.

Then on the last Sunday of March we have Mothering Sunday - A legacy of a time when servants lived and worked away from their families with very little time off but were given this Sunday to go home often with gifts for their mothers. Although this is focused on ‘mothers’ the emphasis is now broader than that. It’s about recognising the role and support supplied by those who bring us up. Again, really a time and space to reflect back.

So, perhaps March could be a time of reflection for you. You may find clarity or new thoughts pinging at you or just realise the importance of the “perhaps”! Have a good March.

Stephanie Goodwin – Reader Uttoxeter Area of Parishes