With all the commemorations at this time of year: everything from the celebration of the century since the birth of Dylan Thomas to All Souls and Remembrance Sunday, one is reminded that “time passes.” What, however, really makes me feel that time passes; indeed that time is running out, is when I hear of some future project being discussed in government and realising that I will be dead before it ever comes to fruition.

There is a tipping point in every human life when we realise that our time of greater energy and creativity is behind us, Not that we don’t have energy, creativity and, it is hoped, the wisdom that comes with the passing of the years, but that we just don’t have time; time to see the outcome of a favoured project. What do we do then? Do we simply not bother because “I won’t be around to see it.” No, indeed! This is the moment to realise in depth, if we have never realised it before, that we do not live for ourselves but for every other. We do not create for our time alone but for the future.

I came across a marvellous saying the other day. It was a slogan from the 2008 US presidential election. It said:

“Rosa sat so that Martin could walk. Martin walked so that Obama could be elected.”

Rosa was Rosa Parks, the black woman who in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat in the coloureds’ section of the bus to a white woman when told to do so by the bus driver, and was arrested. Her act of defiance led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott which fuelled the civil rights movement in America, raising its profile and allowing Martin Luther King to make progress. What Martin Luther King did led eventually to the election of the first coloured president of the United States, President Obama. But Rosa did not act on her own. She was the local secretary to the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, a civil rights movement that was formed in 1909! It took 99 years of civil disobedience by many people to come to that place where America could vote for a coloured president.

Earlier this year a dear friend died whom I didn’t meet until after his retirement. What he didn’t know anymore than any of us know was how long he would live – it turned out to be a over thirty years. During that time he gave his energy and commitment to many things: the ordination of women to the priesthood, the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and Africa, which he loved deeply, having worked there for many years. He was thoroughly committed to justice issues. His pre-retirement life was full of incident but for me, who only knew him after his retirement, he seemed to live a lifetime when he stopped working!

Yes, time passes for us as individual souls; but for each one of us who recognises that we are so much more than a particular and exclusive self, growing older gives us the opportunity to let die selfish ambition and to nurture a love for others and for their well being which gives us a part in what is to come. What we do, the choices we make, continue to matter. We continue to make the future.

O that today you would listen to his voice! (Psalm 95: 7b)

For some people dark mornings in winter are very difficult, especially for those who go to work in the dark, then work underground or in windowless spaces, and come out at the end of the day into darkness. For a little while I worked amongst such people and I know how hard the winter months were to them.

I am blessed in that, living at Launde, I am made aware of the gifts and delights of each season in my short walk from home to work, and I love walking to work in the dark, hearing the call of the first birds, the rustle of wind in the trees, the sense sometimes of dampness in the air, and all around the quiet that comes from a world still at rest.

But I am even more blessed on a Sunday.

Each Sunday at 7.45am, before the Eucharist at 8am, we go through a little ritual called the Blessing of the Water and the Renewal of Baptism Vows. The chapel is in darkness at this time of year and the preparation becomes part of the worship. The water from the bowl in the font is carried out of the back door of the chapel, the one that gives on to the little burial site, and poured onto the land (never down the drain: this water has been blessed). The bowl is filled with fresh tap water and placed in the font and the Pascal Candle, which stands by the font is lit. This is the only light in the chapel apart from the one on the stairs. The one candle lit, we then sit and wait in the darkness that wraps us around like a warm blanket, until it is time for the Blessing of the Water and the Renewal of Baptism Vows. Sometimes, depending on the time of year, grey light may begin to steal in through the windows as the dawn comes but in the depths of winter we remain in darkness.

When it is time we gather around the font. We hear the words of the blessing of the water.

God our Father, your gift of water brings light and freshness to the earth. It washes away sins and brings eternal life. Bless and hallow this water. Renew the living spring of your life within us….

We are reminded of God the Creator, of the extraordinary gift of life and that water is a prerequisite to life and a sustainer of it. We may remember those who do not have enough water. As we are reminded of Christ’s resurrection and renew our baptism vows, we stand again at the beginning of our Christian journey and hear again the call to a holy life. The short service over (no more than five minutes) we light the candles underneath the icons and on the altar from the Pascal candle – just as we do at dawn on Easter Day, and then sit again in the candlelit chapel until it is time for the Eucharist to begin.

I had never come across this little service until I came to Launde Abbey but I am so glad to have discovered it. Every Sunday, for a Christian, is supposed to be a celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and the Eucharist gathers up the story of Christ’s life, passion and resurrection. But each Sunday is also the first day of the week, a moment when we go back to the beginning, so to speak. The world is made fresh and we start again – and where do we start? With a reminder that out of darkness God brought light at the beginning of time; that water brings life and freshness to the earth; that at the darkest hour the Light of the World broke forth from the tomb of death and that, in baptism we received his Light to guide us, his Spirit to encourage us and our call to follow him, however dark it might sometimes be.