Dear Parents and Friends,
We are experiencing the darkest days of the calendar year. Next Friday, the winter solstice will bring the darkest day as the sun is furthest from our planet’s north pole and we begin anew the gradual tilt that brings us the hope of longer, warmer days. This play of darkness and light invites many to give greater thought to our human living, and that is, in fact, what this Season of Advent brings: perhaps an invitation to consider our ‘ultimacy,’ to step off the fast-moving holiday train for just a moment and consider what is truly most important in our living, in our friendships, in our families. In the end, what is it that we must hold as most valuable and ultimately worth investing our heart, mind and strength in finding and maintaining.
The troubled, alcoholic Harvard poet James Agee knew something of this play of darkness and light in writing this passage from his poem Description of Elysium
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder wand'ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
Today the darkness has struck our nation again, and we have witnessed the shadowed star. We are reeling with the news of the tragedy this morning in Connecticut. As a school community, this strikes us at the heart: the senseless loss of 20 young children and many of their faculty and administrators. It is an act of darkness that will surely overwhelm the light of this season for these families and loved ones, for whom the healing from this horrific loss will be long in coming and never complete.
As a community of faith, sentimental or Pollyanna responses to this tragedy will be completely inappropriate. Resignation that this is somehow God’s will is ridiculous: this cannot be the will of God. What this act of darkness should draw from each one of us is a greater commitment to action on behalf of the light: a serious civic dialogue about access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons, how our society cares for those struggling with mental illness, the many members of our community being squeezed into acts of desperation because we refuse to share, and more.
As we move into next week with our many community offerings of prayer and music we will remember most especially these children, their families, and their teachers; we will also hold in mind the law-enforcement and fire service officials and medical professionals who will bear their own deep grief in having helplessly attended to the victims and their families who are suffering so terribly.
And in these troubled days we will implore the God of great mercy, who chose to come among us a vulnerable child, born of a terrified, poor and ill-prepared mother. We place all of our lost and suffering children in his care this night, and in the care of his mother who beckons us: No tengas miedo! No estoy aqui que soy tu madre? And we ask him for greater courage and strength to be effective agents of the light, to work for real and positive change so that our communities both here throughout the world may be healthy and whole. Building a civilization of love: that is what this holy season calls you and me to now go and do.
Gregory Glenn
Pastoral Administrator
