Learning and Loving in the Holiday Season

As we Saints approach Christmas vacation, we also approach the annual Lessons and Carols chapel service which leads us into the break.  One of my favorite events each year, Lessons and Carols brings together the entire Upper School community—students, faculty, parents, and even an assortment of alumni—for a moment of reflection on the importance of the holiday season.  Through prayer and song we give thanks for those around us and offer blessings for a rewarding two weeks with family to come. 
Lessons and Carols follows the Thanksgiving Service in the first semester series of special in-school holiday events.  As a devout Christian, I can attest to the spiritual benefit of these services.  Still, not every Saint maintains the same religious views.  That doesn’t matter.  I have yet to meet anyone here who does not absolutely love and respect both the Thanksgiving Service and Lessons and Carols for their ability to reinforce the close bond we experience as a school community at a time of year when this is most critical.  Indeed, as JK-12 Chaplain Reverend Cavanaugh always reminds us, it’s important to have faith not only in God, but also in each other, and to love and serve one another every day without fail.  This very relationship among individuals lies at the heart of SSSAS, and I am grateful more so for it than for any other aspect of our school.  Let’s just say the two major services do us all a great service in bringing that relationship to the forefront.