Back to School

By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

Back to school.  Fresh starts can be apprehensively fun, like the first day of climbing Mount Everest.  For new kids on the block, school’s first day can be daunting.  In any event, come mid-October, it’ll be a grind.  

A school is a river with a strong current.  Jump in, and you perilously maneuver.  The river’s end is out of sight.  There’s little time to ponder the destination.  Survival matters.  

Some advice: Occasionally, take a break and swim ashore.  Sit down on the river’s bank, dripping wet.  Catch your breath and think about where the river is taking you.

School’s river empties into a vast, wide ocean of rough seas.  The world.  You’re destined to swim that ocean for life.  But there’s a sunrise its horizon.  

Sailing into that seascape, graduates often think they are the generation that will change the world.  Perhaps.  If so, it’ll be in ways unforeseen.  Prophets rarely understand their prophecies. The future’s only certainty is its uncertainty.  One’s navigation is influenced, but not determined, by the river’s lessons.  So, swim to shore every now and then, and reflect on what you’re doing.  And ponder the eastern sunrise. 

Jesus did this with his Apostles.  "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).  Escape the fray and ask, “What am I doing?” “Where am I going?”  “What is this all about?”  Contrive no quick answers.  Leave some questions open-ended.  Openness to the mysterious sunrise is meditation.  It grants Wisdom.  Mysticism opens our minds and hearts to God’s Wisdom.  

Steeped in wisdom, humans pass through visible realities to those which are unseen.  Our era needs such wisdom more than bygone ages if human discoveries are to be further humanized.  For the future of the world stands in peril unless wiser people are forthcoming…It is, finally, through the gift of the Holy Spirit that humans come by faith to the contemplation and appreciation of the divine plan (Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, 15).   

Contemplation is an openness to Wisdom – and perhaps an encounter.  It is mystical prayer, a work of the Holy Spirit.  It’s God’s delightful invasion of your whole person.  It produces Love.  Wisdom will “mix her wine” (Proverbs 9:2) and show you God’s Love and Light – and your destiny.