Together

Hello! It has officially been a month since the start of school and this week we joyfully welcomed back on campus our SLOCA Live UMS and High Schoolers. So, how has the first month gone for you and your crew? How are you feeling about the school year so far? Well, today, we wanted to take some time to reflect on our school theme and hopefully encourage you as we head into some possibly tumultuous weeks for our country.

At our Parent Orientation last month, our Executive and Visionary Director, Susie Theule, introduced our theme for the year — Together. Susie’s eloquent words were so impactful and motivating that we wanted to share a summary of them with you. May this post serve as a reminder to our community of the importance of this year’s powerful and challenging theme. 

As Susie reflected, each of us is connected by the fact that we are all experiencing the “big things going on in the world” these days. “2020 has been a year of Relentless…We are being called to pivot daily, to absorb loss, to find new ways of being, to find new ways of doing, and it just seems utterly relentless…2020 has hit all of us differently. But our challenge [this year] is to come together, for the sake of our kids.” 

It was sobering to acknowledge the possibility that the next 7 months could be more challenging than the last 7 months. But Susie gave us two horizons to keep in mind. “First, we must prepare to make 20-21 the best educational experience it can be for our kids…And second, we must see this year as an opportunity to prepare them for the longer term — for the future beyond.”

As we look at all the obstacles and challenges of this year, those that have already happened and those yet to come, Susie poses this question:

How do we navigate well through a landscape fraught with the challenges related to COVID, civil unrest, American history, and an election year?

 “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

— The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s classic story, The Lord of the Rings, offers many parallels for our current experiences, as we all are saying along with Frodo, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” But it is happening in our time, and it is very likely the journey has only just begun. But Susie reminds us of the importance of fellowship. “Frodo only reached his journey’s end through fellowship. Fellowship with people wildly different from him. In the Fellowship of the Ring, elves and dwarves and men and hobbits banded together to get the job done for the sake of a world they all loved. And that’s how we’re going to get through this coming year together, for the sake of the kids we love.”

So how do we best prepare ourselves for TOGETHER?

Together We Listen & Learn

• We partner across differences, remember that we all want the best for our kids, we are all human, and that our stories, as different as they are, are intertwined for such a time as this. 
• We listen to the stories of those different from ourselves.
• We work to assume the best.
• We work to find the good in others.
• We build bridges with each other rather than knocking them down.
• We move from judgment towards grace because we are committed to a greater good and because we all need “some measure of unmerited grace” (Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy).
• We come ready to grow in humility and heart.

Together We Are Hearty

(Hearty — vigorous & cheerful, robust & healthy)

Heartiness is often developed during hardships, let’s lean in and make the best of it! What does this look like?

• Commit — to the hearty, wearying work ahead — don’t quit and don’t let your kids quit.
• Don’t shy away from the hard — enter difficult history with your kids, have hard conversations with them about it, talk with your older students about what’s going on in the world, listen to them, and cast a different vision for our future.
• Embrace and tackle the challenges without complaint. 
• Jump in and help. Find your role and do your part — cheer for us and come alongside of us.
• Pivot our vision towards the heartiness we and our students are building rather than on the troubles.

Together We Come With Hope & Expectation 

“With so many potential pitfalls and adversaries on our journey, let’s not forget that the world is also full of beauty and hope — silver linings around the dark clouds.  Let us work together to remind each other to slow down and notice the good, the true, and the beautiful amidst the bad, the hard, and the ugly and to help our kids find hope amidst the challenges. If we train ourselves to be quiet and look, good, beauty and hope are everywhere.”

• In the daily “aha” moments our kids have when learning, the laughter around a shared meal, or the tears that arise when reading those amazing stories with our kids that we read at SLOCA.
• The good and beautiful are in the hills around us, the ripening of the grapes, the turning of the leaves, the ocean just down the road.
• They are in the extra time we have with our family.
• And there is hope and beauty in our community that takes learning seriously. Our kids get to keep learning in a community that loves them, with teachers and parents who care deeply about them and their thriving.
• There is hope and beauty in crises – We know that people, and cultures, often flourish in crises, as they bring darkness into the light and call out dormant parts of ourselves.  
• And they are in the reality that these days and the challenges they bring will make for hearty kids — kids who are robust, thoughtful, humble, and prepared – more ready for the future than they’d be without these challenges. THAT is a reason to HOPE. And that is infused with the good, the true, and the beautiful.

“We need you and what you bring to the journey – and we are asking that you join our fellowship. We are inviting you to see ourselves as one team, a team full of people wildly different from each other, a team facing common adversaries and tough terrains, but a team, a fellowship, nonetheless, a fellowship focused on the greater good — our kids and all they will become, and all they will have to offer our world. We can do this — if we do it together.”