Goodbye and God Bless

For Year 12, thirteen years of formal schooling comes to an end this week with just the exams to complete early next term. And it is around this time of year that I ponder about what we have been striving to achieve as educators with our students.

We often seem torn between two competing, and at times, divergent goals – preparing students so that they can go out into the market place and survive and thrive, to be productive members of the community and economy. At the same time, we are trying to help young people on a path to doing good and being good in a way that honours God. Much of the expectation that schools face from governments and authorities is on producing citizens who can work.

This dilemma was explored by a Jewish Rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchih, in his book ‘The Lonely Man of Faith’. He argued that we have two sides within us which he called, Adam I and Adam II. Adam I is our face to the world – our ambitious, competitive side that wants to find success and achievement. Adam II on the other-hand is spiritual, an inner being that wants to serve others and do good by others. The American journalist and social commentator, David Brooks describes the former as our ‘resume virtues’ – the list of things we have achieved and have to sell and the latter as our ‘eulogy virtues’ – the qualities we possess as a person that stays with others after we are gone.

The problem that we find is that our society seems to reward the Adam I or ‘resume virtues’ much more than the Adam II or ‘eulogy virtues’. Brooks argues that this can turn us into a “shrewd animal who treats life as a game, and you become a cold, calculating creature who slips into a sort of mediocrity where you realize there's a difference between your desired self and your actual self.” I think that we can all agree that this is not what we want for our young people.

And one can’t help but feel that the growing rates of anxiety, depression, drug use, domestic violence, dysfunctional families, suicide and self-harm are all somehow linked to the failure of our materialistic way of life to make us contented human beings. Something seems to be lacking and I would argue that it is a spiritual dimension to our lives. Clearly, rates of attendance to all Christian churches are on the decline and the latest census data shows that more Australians identify themselves as atheists than ever before. The growing percentage of Australia’s population reporting no religion has been a trend for decades, and is accelerating. Those reporting no religion increased noticeably from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in 2016. The largest change was between 2011 (22 per cent) and 2016, when an additional 2.2 million people reported having no religion.

As the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed, the Catholic Church as an institution systematically failed to protect young people and part of the consequence of this irresponsible behaviour has been the desertion of young people from the Church. Hopefully the Plenary Council will enact measures that will help those who have turned away from the Church feel that it is once more a place where they can find God in a community setting. One only has to look about at Sunday mass to see how urgent the issue is for the Church.

But as our young men and women leave school to embark on their adult lives, I would like to urge them to remember a few things. Up until now they have been sheltered and guided by home and school. Now they must stand on their own two feet. This means accepting responsibility for their own life and living with the consequences of the choices they make.

And I can promise them this, there will be difficult and arduous times, the way will not always be smooth. In those times I urge them to remember that Christ will always be with them – but it will be their decision whether he lights their way or not.

And as they leave what do I hope for them? I hope that they find fulfilment by enjoying the simple, the ordinary, the everyday. That they find a partner for life, that they have a family if they want one and that they have friends and work that gives them satisfaction.

I will not talk about success because success is somebody else’s failure. If you lead a life driven by the culture of materialism and success and instant gratification, then you will be miserable and discontented because it denies our humanity. We are weak, we are frail, we make mistakes and we do fail; at times they will experience loss and fear and injustice and loneliness. And our challenge is to accept this and live through it, not to deny or ignore it but through our relationships with others and God, find sustenance and peace. I am constantly inspired by the words of Ursula le Guin: ‘I know that there is only one power worth having. And that is the power, not to take, but to accept. Not to have, but to give,’.

I hope that they leave understanding that their Adam I and Adam II must be in balance, that both are essential for a fulfilling and meaningful life.

And so, my final words for Year 12 comes from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. In this scene Piglet asks Pooh, “We’ll be friends forever, won’t we Pooh?” and Pooh replies “Even longer”.

Goodbye Year 12 and God bless.

Mr Mick Larkin - Assistant Principal - Pastoral Care

St Nicholas Church - Youth Group