From the Chaplaincy

Valuing Connections

Picture 40+ Foundation and Year 1 students. They are having their morning assembly and they’re hanging on our every word (as a 5 or 6-year-old would). It’s a very interactive assembly, lots of questions and discussions. The "virtues cards" (cards that describe the behaviours we admire in our students) underpin Junior assemblies and, fundamentally, they are the vehicle through which our students learn to connect with their inner self, their true self.  We focus on one virtue for the week, unpick what it means, thread it through their Wellbeing program, and make it practical whenever  ‘teachable moments’ crop up.

Sometimes, an analogy will help our students to understand better how they’re already connected to each virtue. This one is a favourite:

Question: How do we get ‘kindness’? 

Do we go to the supermarket?  Do we go to the aisle of tinned food and look for the shelf with . . . .. . . canned virtues?

Do we take home a can of ‘Kindness’, and have ‘Kindness’ on toast for breakfast, before coming to school? 

Naturally, the students think that’s absurdly funny. Prod them for an answer and they will respond with:

“Kindness is already in our hearts”.

Push them deeper and they will tell you that God has filled us up full, with all the virtues. We just need to choose to use them. This is the connection that we value beyond and above all others, because our inseparability from God underpins all other harmonious connections. 

Romans 8:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God . . .

And from Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy:

The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough!

The Chaplaincy Team