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That dark held a memory of sunset and a rumour of dawn
Simon Stewart
Fighting the blues
Back at the desk, Brittany seems a long way off! Warm, muggy days make me pine for the beach but the normally quiet start of term is hectic and pressured. I have a lot of Rainbows commitments as schools consider pastoral care for the year ahead. In the increasingly complex lives of the children, emotional support and development are becoming as important as academic curricula. We all know how loss and the grief that accompanies it can make our thinking fuzzy and our energy low. It’s true of children too, though they express their sadness in different ways to us adults.
The Rainbows programme helps children express their sadness and move through it – it can give them stability and security in a world that has become fragile. When I train school teams to deliver the programme I am reminded of just how committed our teachers are. Whether they see it like this or not, it is the carrying out of a key element of the Church’s mission.
A post-review education service
We are entering a new period in the Education Service’s history: new leadership under Fr. Luiz Ruscillo and restructuring to cover the loss of Jenny Pate and Dympna Magee. In the background hovers the cloud of financial restrictions. The future is unclear, while the challenges of secularism and consumerism remain as clear as ever.
I feel kind of jittery, which I often do after holidays, when normal life and routine go on temporary hold. Now change and new newness are upon me I feel nervous. It helps me understand how my sons must feel as they enter new years at school and acclimatise to new teachers.
There is excitement too. Shoots of enthusiasm, vision and commitment. Two parishes already have been in touch to talk about planning ahead and energising people. There is much to be done – let’s hope we are open enough to the Spirit to get stuck in.
Silence is golden
As we prepare for a study day on the new General Instruction of the Roman Missal, it’s worth thinking about one of the hopes of the document – that we will experience more and deeper silence in our liturgy.
Staring at the stars on a quiet camp-site in France, it was easy to appreciate silence. Apart from the distant roar of the sea and the odd whisper of crickets, the silence late at night was wonderful. Without TV, radio, ghetto-blaster or mobile phone the world is a very different place. And I am a different person.
The Benedictine Lawrence Freeman wrote about this recently in article called ‘Eucharist and Silence’. He reminded us that true silence of stillness does not require a lack of noise but an inner disposition. It can be done on Sunday with the life and noise of our children around us. And it can be done by our children when they see its effects on us. When done properly it doesn’t require ‘shushing’ but, with touch, can become a language of love. As another monk, Tom Keating, said, “Silence is God’s first language. Everything else is a poor translation.”
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