A Parade of Care

Teach us to care and not to care. These words from T.S. Eliot’s poem Ash Wednesday served as a framing device for The Reflections read at the annual Church Parade held at Christ Church, Windsor, on Wednesday, May 23^rd at 3:00pm. Head Boy, Arturo Ramirez Balderas, read the First Lesson from Genesis on the story of the Tower of Babel, while Head Girl, Meredith Chambers, read the story of Pentecost from The Book of The Acts of The Apostles. Babel is not a just-so story that seeks to explain the origins of cultures and languages - as if such things were the result of divine punishment - but about human pride and presumption in the imposition of one language and culture, essentially denying the God-given diversities of our humanity. Such is the form of all and every form of totalitarianism past and present. Pentecost celebrates the diversity of languages and cultures, demonstrating that the real truth and unity of our humanity is found in and through those diversities as authored by God. Unity and diversity are not human constructs in this view but divinely established.

 

The Reflections focused on the idea of icons as images of the understanding through which we begin to learn something about ourselves individually and collectively in terms of learning how to care and how to care in the right way. The Reflections were read by Sebastian Parsons Hall, Rayannah Hwang, Jiyuan (Calvin) Shen, Ben Lohr, Julia Strickey, Luis Espinosa, Antonia Ziegler, and Joanna Bond. The servers were Alden Mulherin, Thomas Boily, Greg Otto, and Ben Fleckenstein. The Intercessory Prayers were led by Olivia Drava. The icons as images of the understanding were the image of Christ the Good Shepherd in the School Chapel, the image of the child Christ teaching in the Temple as found in the Chapel at our sister institution, the University of King’s College, Halifax, and the image of Christ Crucified over the high altar at Christ Church, Windsor. Those images were in turn connected to a Russian icon of Christ Pantokrator, Christ the Ruler of All, found at both Christ Church and the School Chapel. The particular image of Christ Pantokrator pictures Christ with an open book symbolising the idea of Christ Pantokrator as Teacher from whom, perhaps, we might begin to learn to care and care to learn. Such ideas speak to the educational ideals of King’s-Edgehill School in and through the diversities of languages and cultures that are part of the life of the School

 

The Reflections may be accessed here.