The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes, in Silence and Honey Cakes about religious education. For him, it focuses on what he calls 'peaceful worthwhileness'. Each person, he says, 'as he or she is at rest, is worthwhile, they don't become worthwhile by all they do when not at rest'.

Going further, he stresses that children and young people need this experience, and help to experience it, to discover and explore their full humanity. Religious education is not about 'bolting on more information'. It requires us to look inwards as much as we look outwards, if not more so.

Our culture is increasingly busy, driven and crammed full of activity, much of it of dubious worth. Schools can often echo this and, by their very busyness, reinforce the messages of our culture. We need to allow, and encourage, the young (as well as the not-so-young) to give time and space to reflection and quietness, moments of stillness that are as appealing and as familiar as the continuous audio whiteout of the iPod. We use noise to drown out the noises we prefer not to hear, the cry of the needy, the struggle and strife of human life.

Sadly, the beauty of birdsong, the wind in the gum trees or the unblemished sounds of silence are collateral damage. We have learned not to know stillness, not to understand it and so lose the beauty of its completeness.

Busyness itself is not the problem. More, it is the attitude we bring to what we do, so often drenched in anxiety and pressure. Our learning, our creative moments, our sport, too, must be cherished for their intrinsic worth, for what they bring to us in the sacrament of the present moment. Otherwise, we live life as performance art, or in a state of constant competition.

The Archbishop warns that we risk creating 'a shrunken humanity' if this is what we nourish in our lifestyle and our schools. He says, too, that it is the whole atmosphere of the school that builds a right approach, and it is a comfort to me that CGS has an understanding of the complete spectrum of human endeavour in its educational offering. The RaVE curriculum, work in the outdoors, and in Chapel, all reinforce the message of stillness within the human experience.

In our holiday time, we should take care to maintain the balance, both in how we spend our time and in the attitudes we adopt towards it. All time is sacred, but holidays are holydays first and foremost. Let our R&R be real time for rest and re-creation.