A Message from our
School Chaplain

Dear Members of the St. Philip’s Community,

As we continue to journey through these uncertain days, we look for words of wisdom to help us accept with serenity what we cannot change and find the silver lining in the difficulties we are experiencing. This week, I share with you the weekly meditation from Rev. Dan Heischman, Executive Director of the National Association of Episcopal Schools.

Singing the Lord’s Song

This past week I was walking around Marcus Garvey Park, near my home. A guitarist was playing and singing from the side of his parked van. A father and his young son were attentively listening, at a safe distance. The young boy grew increasingly entranced with the musician’s guitar, and suddenly lunged forward to touch the instrument. The father had to hold him back, provoking loud cries from his son, desperate to reach out and put his fingers on the guitar.

All of us have had moments—most of them less dramatic—similar to that, over the past weeks. We have had to work against our natural instincts, our innate desire to be with people, go to particular places, act upon our curiosity, and get a closer look. Watching an online Easter service offered by my home church, I felt a similar urge. I also felt that deep sense of loss we all know when we recall those gatherings we no longer can experience.

The upcoming weeks—times in our schools normally packed with special events, commencements, occasions when we gather to say farewell to colleagues—will afford us many times of sad longing. Similarly, as the weather warms we long to be outside with others. We will be grieving either what we have relied upon in the past or looked forward to in the near future.

In many ways, we are reliving, in our time, the major, biblical shift required of the Israelites in exile. Deprived of their homeland, unable to worship at the Temple, the Israelites were faced with a deep, existential question, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”* How do we reimagine our yearning for commitment, connection, and conviction?

I hope his words resonate with you and offer you a perspective of hope. This week we will have the Health and Wellness Town Hall meetings, I look forward to seeing you then. Here is this week’s Chapel led by our Student Council Historian, Valentina Castro. 
Have a blessed week!

Mrs. Blanca Famadas
Chaplain