"Change and Permanence"
    Intercom, Vol. 38, No. 5, May/June 2007

A number of years ago, I was asked in an interview what qualities I would like to be able to tell colleges were typical of my school’s graduates. “There would be two,” I replied. “Personal integrity and intellectual curiosity. If a student has those, she can acquire everything else she needs.” As we celebrate Goal II this year, we begin with the value of intellectual curiosity.

This quality, of course, predates even the earliest days of formal schooling. It is curiosity which propels the youngest child into exploring the world. The more we discover about the human brain, the more we appreciate its passion for learning. The smallest infants, we now know, will immediately show by blink rate, heartbeat, and other signs, their interest in a new stimulus, and that interest will fall off quickly when the stimulus is repeated for a while. No one who watches a child from birth through toddlerhood can doubt that mental curiosity is as powerful a driving force as physical hunger in his or her lives.

Our Lower School students always impress me with their curiosity. A few days ago one of our younger students got out of the car clutching a copy of Homer’s Odyssey. “You can leave the book here,” Mom said. The little girl insisted on taking it with her. “But it’s her sister’s book,” Mom said. “It’s from the Seventh Grade.” Hurray for high aspirations!

Middle Schoolers, too, begin to branch out into new areas, trying theater, arts, languages, and other interests. We have in fact enhanced our activities program in the Middle School in order to give these young minds even more outlets. Middle Schoolers also begin to find ways around their limitations. One afternoon I commented on a sixth grader’s shoes, which lacked laces. “What’s up?” I asked. “Well, we had to draw our shoes, and I’m not good at laces, so I solved the problem by taking them out.”

In many schools, the excitement of intellectual curiosity all too soon gives way to the dutiful pursuit of academic success, as students narrow their interests into the channels which promise the most immediate rewards. Not at Stone Ridge. I listen to our Upper Schoolers at assembly, acting out a scene from Lord of the Flies to celebrate William Golding’s birthday; I see one in eight of them arriving at 7:05 A.M. to take anthropology, Asian studies, or philosophy, courses which couldn’t be fitted into the regular school day; I count the panoply of clubs and interest groups which students create for themselves to supplement what we offer in the classroom, and I marvel at their energy, their intelligence, and their passion for learning.

Our hope is that as adults, we all model the same degree of curiosity, as we do when as faculty we take on the “It’s Academic” student team at assembly and barely escape with a hair’s breadth victory. Janet Erskine Stuart said, “a good teacher must be an evergreen learner.” At Stone Ridge, we expect our students and our teachers to live this ideal each and every day—and they do.

According to Biblical legend, King Solomon was told by one of his advisors of a ring inscribed with a single phrase that would gladden anyone who read it when sad, and sadden anyone who read it when glad. The Hebrew phrase, gam ze yavor, means “This too shall pass,” and the story has appealed to many speakers and writers, including Abraham Lincoln.

At the end of the school year, the phrase seems especially apt. On the plus side, the winter has ended, and Stone Ridge’s campus has returned to all its botanical glory. Our spirits are lifted by these changes, and by the good news our seniors have received from colleges throughout the region and the country. At the Très Bien Ball, we welcomed another class into the worldwide network of Sacred Heart Alumnae. The Easter season too reminded us that the greatest sorrow gives way to the greatest joy.

Yet every passing is not a joyous one, and even the happy changes bring their regrets. This wonderful class of seniors is moving on, leaving the world of Stone Ridge behind. A few faculty and staff will retire, no longer gracing us with their presence. And of course, every parent will view with a mixture of pride and nostalgia the changes in their own children. (I have been at a number of schools of widely different types, which chose Fiddler on the Roof for their spring musical. I’ve always thought the main reason for selecting that play is the certainty that there won’t be a dry parental eye in the house when a couple too young to know the meaning of the words sings “Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the years.”))

Fortunately, Stone Ridge’s foundations rest on bedrock that resists even Solomon’s universal truth. The faith which caused St. Madeleine Sophie Barat to found the Sacred Heart order 200 years ago, and the Goals and Criteria of Sacred Heart education give Stone Ridge a firm base not subject to the seasons or the tides of fashion. In the end, we can balance the words of Solomon with those of the Epistle of Peter: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever.” May you all have a happy and blessed summer.

Many years ago, on a Jesuit retreat, I heard a story about St. Ignatius, who was playing chess when a discussion arose about what each person in the room would do if they heard that Jesus had just returned to earth. As each vied in the extravagance of their actions, Ignatius replied imperturbably that he would finish the chess game and then go to meet Christ. I later found many other voices echoing this advice to complete what you have begun. Jewish lore says, “If you are planting a tree and someone tells you that the Messiah has come, finish planting the tree, then go to greet him.” Even the quite secular Calvin Coolidge said that “nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

At this time of year, it is hard for our students—and maybe for some of us as well—to adhere to these mottoes. The weather grows warmer every day. The daily routine is hard to take up again after the freedom of Easter vacation. Whether they are dreaming of summer camp and planned family trips, or of the fast-approaching date of graduation, the minds of students, from pre-school through the Senior Class, tend to drift off into the future with every passing hour.

Yet we still have trees to be planted here at Stone Ridge. Almost a quarter of the school year—the prophetic forty days—remains. The hard academic work aimed at Advanced Placements and final exams has yet to reach its fruition. Both positive and negative impressions have ample time to be reversed, and school goals from academics to fundraising can leap to success or fall short in these last two months. Many weeks of learning can culminate in exciting projects, and in assignments that crown a sequence of growth, or can be frittered away: the year can end with a bang or a whimper.

Someone once suggested that 90% of success is just showing up. That may be too high an estimate, but surely 90% of failure can be attributed to not showing up, whether in body or in spirit. St. Jerome counseled, “having put your hand to the plough, you ought not then let it go.” As students, teachers, and parents, we should all view the last weeks of school as a chance to show up, put our hands to the plough, and finish what we began planting in August.

Early in the New Year I took a break from the college bowl games and channel-surfed. What I saw made me more distressed than usual about the condition of education and society in America.

ESPN, not having any traditional sports to show, was airing a marathon of several years’ National Spelling Bees. Hour after hour, middle schoolers spelled words ranging from the fairly common (“gigot” – an elegant term for a leg of lamb) to the profoundly obscure (“poimenics” – the study or practice of pastoral theology). A few channels over, a group of female models were in a similar competition, only here the questions were more like “What city is the capital of New England?” (Answer: None, because New England isn’t a state. The contestant got it wrong.)

I’m not sure which of the two was sadder – watching preadolescent children under intense pressure to perform esoteric feats that will probably never be useful to them again, or seeing adult women deliberately compete in a contest aimed at displaying their ignorance before a mocking audience. Indeed, these are only a few of the media experiences which suggest that our culture either scorns knowledge or exalts the most trivial and even vicious talents.

What would I propose to counter these examples? First, that we genuinely consider what our young people need to know, not what is easiest for them to memorize or to put on display. By building character and speaking about morality, as well as by teaching reading, math, critical thinking, and a host of other meaningful subjects, we can prepare our girls for genuine accomplishment and meaningful contribution.

Second, that we reject the prevalent worship of the ephemeral over the fundamental. The best way to do this is to practice what we preach, remembering that what we value is what our children will most likely come to value. As the aphorism goes, Morality is caught, not taught.

The words of St. Francis of Assisi are especially apt at Stone Ridge: “Preach Jesus constantly. Use words when necessary.” As parents and educators, we need to be clear to follow the precept of the book of Proverbs: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

This year’s Stone Ridge Christmas card features words from a half-century old greeting. At Christmas 1513, the Dominican Giovanni Giocondo (whose name may be translated “Cheerful John”) sent these lines to a young countess:

I salute you. There is nothing I can give you which you have not, but there is much that while I cannot give, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven. No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy. And so at this Christmastime, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

Joy, peace, heaven, daybreak: each of these moving words is present in our favorite carols, and in the mystery of the Incarnation, which assures us that heaven is our inheritance, and that joy and peace lie within us, ready for the taking.

At Stone Ridge, Fra Giovanni’s words are particularly apt. Every educator and every parent will understand his paradox: “There is nothing I cannot give you which you have not, but there is much that while I cannot give, you can take.” Despite our earnest wishes for our children, we cannot give them what they are not ready to take. Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ saw this same truth: “No one can be educated by maxim and precept; it is the life lived, and the things loved and the ideals believed in, by which we tell, one upon another.” Stone Ridge honors this principle every day, and never more so than at Christmas.

Throughout the fall, in Social Action, in student-designed and led liturgies, in innumerable creative assignments, in the competition which gave us the lovely Christmas card you have just received, in efforts on behalf of our Sacred Heart school in Uganda and for the poor and homeless who are our neighbors, our students have found what lies within them, because we so carefully refrain from giving them what they need to take for—and from—themselves. One of the glories of the Sacred Heart Goals is their “action words”—an active faith in God, a social awareness which impels to action, building community, personal growth. As a new member of this community, it is my great delight to watch these goals fulfilled—especially in our Lessons and Carols, Advent Angels, and Feast Wishes, in all of which the students take the lead.

As you read this, we will be entering the darkest time of the year, in which the greatest of all lights suddenly shines on us and among us. And so, to paraphrase Susan Cooper’s beautiful words, as promise wakens in the sleeping land, we carol, feast, give thanks, and dearly love our friends, and hope for peace. May the love of Jesus keep you now and in the New Year.

We all hope for, and fear, change. This year, Stone Ridge is going through one of the larger changes in its recent history, with the departure of Sister Anne Dyer and the search for a permanent head. Experts tell us that change has many painful effects: it evokes feelings of loss, it challenges our sense of competence, it creates confusion, and it invites conflict. Yet despite all these possible stresses, Stone Ridge appears to be moving through this period of transition very well.

Why is this so? Peter Senge says, "There has to be something at the soul of an organization that does not change but that will enable people to live with change." At Stone Ridge, that something is the Sacred Heart tradition.

But traditions only exist because people preserve them. It is the community of Stone Ridge that makes it possible for us to live with and even prosper during change. That is why the school has chosen Goal IV, the building of community as a Christian value, as the Goal on which we will focus this year.

Community comes in many forms at Stone Ridge, from friendly gatherings like the all-school picnic held after our Mass of the Holy Spirit, to praying together for global and individual intentions. During the opening weeks of school, we have been discussing what builds up community and what tears it down. We have been reaching out to each other, learning each other’s names, and holding many events to help strengthen our bonds.

In all this work, we have many guides, both secular and sacred. Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle maintained that people come together for three kinds of reasons: because they can be useful to each other, because they enjoy each other’s company, and, best of all, because they share a vision of the Good. All these reasons are present at Stone Ridge, but we are especially blessed to have a community whose vision of the Good has been given to us by the greatest teacher of all.

Jesus said, "Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches." In these words, he gives us one of many beautiful images through which he helps us understand our mutual connection and obligations toward each other.

The community of Stone Ridge begins with those who work here every day: teachers build community among themselves so that they can understand, support, and serve their students. They model community for the students, who can never achieve alone what they can all achieve together, whether on the playing field, in Social Action, or even in the classroom, where educators are recognizing more and more clearly the value of group work and cooperative learning.

But the community of Stone Ridge extends far beyond our gates: to the parents of today’s students, to our alumnae, to all those who have ever had a connection to this school, to the Sacred Heart tradition, and to our faith. I invite you all to join with me in a year of community building.

As we do so, we can take heart from the words of C.S. Lewis: "Christ, who said to the disciples ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ can truly say to every group of Christian friends ‘You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.’ At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside." May He preside over, and further, our work this year.

Almost everyone knows the song “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof. Fewer have read the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer on which the musical is based. In that tale, Tevye praises not tradition, but “the Torah,” or the Bible, as the basis of proper conduct and a happy life.

At Stone Ridge, a trinity of traditions helps to guide us and to fill our school year with meaning and with delight.

First is our Catholic tradition: the annual cycle of holy days and holidays, Masses and prayers, and the curricula of our theology courses. These traditions tie us to all Catholics around the world and through the ages.

Then comes Sacred Heart tradition, from the high Goals and Criteria to the feasts of Mater Admirabilis, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, and St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, to the simpler traditions of Congé, Goûter, and singing “Couer de Jésus.”

Finally there are the special local traditions of Stone Ridge: Blue vs. Gold, Feast Wishes, the Trés Bien Ball, Primes, and all the other activities that typify life at this very special school.

To some, such rituals and ceremonies are simply a distraction from whatever they see as the real business of life. Years ago my wife and I watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. As the guards stepped through their paces, an American in front of us said to his wife, “If this was the U.S. they’d just get in there, change the guard, and be done with it.”

Janet Erskine Stuart knew better. She said, “Honored traditions and ideals are handed down if the school has a history and spirit of its own. There are impressive and solemn moments in the life of a large school which remain in the memory as something beautiful and great.” Anyone who has attended a Mass of the Holy Spirit, or the commissioning of students for Social Action, will know well what she meant.

I had a moving experience of the Sacred Heart tradition when I attended my first meeting of Network schools at the Shrine of St. Rose Philippine. In that simple but beautiful T-shaped chapel, the heads were asked to take seats in the front pews. As we listened to St. Charles students read and sing about Philippine, one dressed as the saint knelt at the altar before Philippine’s own crucifix. From the altar, red ribbons dangled, curling on the floor. At the climax of the ceremony, students uncurled the ribbons and handed one to each of us, so that we were linked to the altar and thereby to the tradition started in America so many generations ago.

At their best, these occasions give us a sense of belonging, of continuity, and of community. And they inspire us, especially our alumnae, to carry them forward, whether in their love of God, their lifelong learning, their commitment to social action, or their dedication to Stone Ridge, where they first learned the traditions.