Blowing Away the Cobwebs
Re-energizing in spring
by Brian Radcliffe
Suitable for Whole School (Sec)
Aims
To encourage us to consider how to move from the more indoor life of winter to the outdoor opportunities of spring.
Preparation and materials
- The Bible passage is from Ecclesiastes 3.1-8.
- Optional: you may wish to arrange for a student to read this passage during the assembly.
Assembly
- There is a passage in the Bible that talks about life being divided up into phases.
Read, or ask a student to read, the passage from Ecclesiastes 3.1-8.
A Time for Everything
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. - There are high times and low times, beginnings and endings, productive times and times for taking a rest.
Similarly, we divide the year into four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. We tend to list them in that order, with spring first and winter last.
March is on the border between the seasons of winter and spring. It’s a transitional month that can seem partly cold and wet like winter and partly warm with blue skies like spring.
You may wish to comment on current weather patterns. - Meteorologically, the main feature of March tends to be that it’s a windy month. Gales blow in, largely from the west, and blow the debris of a cold winter all over the place. In many ways, this blowiness is helpful because it uncovers the new growth and brings in milder temperatures. The downside is that it creates a tidy-up job for homeowners, but maybe we could capitalize on that and use it as a way to earn some extra pocket money!
Time for reflection
Let’s think about the seasons in relation to ourselves.
- How has the winter treated us?
- Did we enjoy staying cosy indoors, not venturing out into the cold that much?
- Did the winter mean that we had a lot of screen time, because our contact with our friends was largely online?
- Did we enjoy eating hot, comforting meals, especially over Christmas and the New Year?
Perhaps we all need the March winds to blow away the debris and get us ready for the new opportunities that spring offers.
First, we could let the wind blow us outside. The benefits of spending time in green spaces have been widely advertised, so let’s try to get out into the country or to a nearby park. There’s something about seeing the first buds coming through on plants and trees that lifts our spirits. Birds are returning from the southern hemisphere, lambs are arriving in the fields and the sun might even shine on us.
Second, maybe we could spend some time outside school with not just our immediate friends, but also those older and younger friends who we may not have seen much this winter. Maybe the spring could be a time for us to widen our friendship circle. A wider friendship group is always stimulating. We might even deliberately go out of our way to cultivate friendships with those we know have endured a lonely winter. Let’s allow ourselves to be blown out into the community.
Finally, let’s get blown into activity. It’s always less appealing to go for a run, have a kick around, go for a swim or take a bike ride when it’s wet and cold. Now is the time to tackle that inactivity. Let’s take some exercise and get that blood pumping around our bodies. It’s good for our brain and our emotions too! Let’s take some exercise and allow our bodies to stretch and open up. We’ll probably also have some fun while we do so.
Christians use the wind as a symbol for how God works in us. They believe that the Spirit of God is a great inspirer and motivator - maybe he could motivate us all to let the wind blow.
Extension activities
- An anemometer is a device that measures the speed and force of wind.
Invite the students to draw a graph with three lines to indicate how well they are allowing themselves to be blown:
- outside
- into the community
- into exercise
