In preparation for this academic year, tutors examined and contemplated Wendell Berry’s lovely poem, “The Peace of Wild Things” together:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time,
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Afterwards, we created maxims for ourselves inspired by Berry’s lovely verse. On the cusp of the Spring semester, I returned to my maxims as a reminder of what I want for my students and my classes this year, as we grow together. I offer mine below.
In my preparation I will not despair of all I want to accomplish. I tend these saplings but two days a week, for less than a year in the lifetime of what will be magnificent trees. They grow at the hand of God. I am only here to play a small part in their cultivation: to nourish their roots for a time, and to help stake their trunks that they may grow tall towards heaven.
My assignments will not tax my students’ lives with forethought of grief; their work should nourish their souls, not cultivate anxiety.
In my classes students will experience still waters. We will delight in the beautiful, for no other purpose than to delight. We will turn our leaves towards the sun and soak in the light.
Sometimes, we will look out the window. Sometimes we will even go outside.
When grading papers wears me thin, I will close my eyes and feel the presence of the day-blind stars who, far above the tedium of my day-to-day tasks, hold a light that nothing in my world can extinguish.
I will teach my students to rest in the grace of the world; to fully recognize and better exercise the faculties and capabilities Providence has graciously bestowed on their earthly bodies and minds, the arts that free them to more deeply know the Logos, the only One who can give their souls true rest.
As accutely aware as I am of how my classes have failed to always live up to the ethos of these maxims, there have also been moments of genuine delight, of restful learning that nourishes the soul. I’m pleased to say, we even made it outside in both of my Omnibus classes! As we persevere through the winter and look forward to the spring, my prayer is that God would continue to gift my students as well as the rest of Granite with opportunities for scholé, for learning that rests in the grace of Providence and points the soul towards Him.
