School's Out for Summer

Yesterday was the first proper day of the school holidays. School staff in England and Wales, to say nothing of the pupils, felt a wonderful sense of relief and pleasure as the long summer break finally arrived. And, true to form, it rained. This will not be allowed to spoil the joy. For six weeks, there will be no marking, planning, misbehaviour, tiresome faculty meetings or meddling senior teachers.

I taught in secondary schools for a couple of decades and can recall the pleasure of late July being offset by the dread experienced in late August. Another academic year looming, another cycle of performance management, lesson observations, rude pupils, pushy parents and pointless new 'whole-school initiatives'. The pleasures of this world always seem to be offset by commensurate pain.

Take those who are about to retire: no more work, just endless mornings on the golf course, Caribbean cruises and weekly visits to Boundary Mill. But then, as the months pass and years accrue, the vigour fades and one contemplates the prospect of sheltered accommodation and retirement homes. One by one, friends and acquaintances kick the bucket and one becomes a regular on the funeral circuit. Then, one’s own death emerges on the mind's horizon. What will happen to the best crockery? Who will get the family photos? How will I die? Will I live beyond the grave? One finally understands the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1: 3-8:

What profit has a man from all his labour

In which he toils under the sun?

One generation passes away, and another generation comes;

But the earth abides forever.

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,

And hastens to the place where it arose.

The wind goes toward the south,

And turns around to the north;

The wind whirls about continually,

And comes again on its circuit.

All the rivers run into the sea,

Yet the sea is not full;

To the place from which the rivers come,

There they return again.

All things are full of labour;

Man cannot express it.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing,

Nor the ear filled with hearing. (New King James Version)

It was all meaningless and worthless: the great pension, the stylish home, the career ladder -everything. Eternity will reveal what most are too dim to understand in life: that only Jesus Christ is the treasure worth gaining, for only He is never offset by some future misery or desolation.