Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
-- Mary Oliver, from “In Blackwater Woods”
On Monday night at Evening Chapel, each of four hundred of us created a paper luminary on which we wrote our most acutely felt losses from the last year and a half. We followed four acolytes with torches out to the Athletic Quad, placed our flickering luminaries around the path, and watched them gently illuminate the school and the night sky.
All of us have lost a year of “normal” school; for some, the loss of a season of athletic competition was particularly painful, or losing the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to the Class of 2020 or 2021 or to a departing member of the staff or faculty. Some have lost their sense of confidence or security, and of course some have lost friends, relatives, or even a famous person that they always admired.
As Katie and I cleared up at the end of the night, we noticed other things, too: the many students who simply said “Middle School,” those who said “my motivation,” “my identity,” “my momentum,” “my sense of self,” “my faith.” It was not a little heartbreaking, but it is a start.
This morning in Chapel we prayed for ourselves, as we continue the struggle to come to terms with our losses: May we be patient with each other and with ourselves in this difficult and never-smooth process. Three steps forward, two steps back; two steps forward, three steps back. May we treat ourselves with compassion and give ourselves ample space to mourn and to share our slowly growing strength with one another.
--The Rev. Barbara Talcott
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