An eighth-grade student recently offered her chapel homily on the theme of “What is the Meaning of Life?” and connected it to the story of Jacob wrestling with God. She said “my purpose in life is to bring joy to other people.” Another eighth-grade student reflecting on art as a spiritual practice said that “my love of art has influenced my perception of the world around me by making me see things with deeper meaning and expanding my imagination.”
“I came that they might have life and have it abundantly”
John 10:10
As we celebrate Episcopal Schools this year with our theme from John 10:10, I am reminded that we provide fertile soil for students to explore and come to understand how they can create abundant lives full of meaning and purpose with the help of God.
Throughout our chapel program students have the opportunity to explore and share how they experience the abundance of life in the many facets of their lives. It happens when an elementary student talks about how they saw a world of endless possibilities when they looked into a microscope for the first time, when an eighth-grade student shares how he has learned that his ADHD is his superpower that allows him to focus on the football call and snap, it comes when a dancer discovers her ability to express her emotions on the dance floor and when a student shares in chapel the connections they have made to others through studying a foreign language.
Each day in the classroom, sports fields, dance studio and all of the other places where students are present, we have the opportunity to create for them an understanding of a world with potential for a life that can be filled with abundance. It comes through deep relationships with students and teachers; when learning, not grades are the focus; through disappointments on the sports field that are transformed into new learnings and when students feel the joy of bringing a can of food for the Food Pantry.
We might want to ask ourselves the question: How is my teaching, coaching or any interaction with students allowing them to explore the abundance of life in a world where scarcity is often the message?
The Rev. Canon Norman S. Hull is Chaplain, K-8 at Campbell Hall (Episcopal) in Studio City, CA.