Jan 13, 2022 |
For Our Children and Their Educators
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
For Our Children and Their Educators
"I see our treatment of our children and their educators as something that speaks directly to our larger dysfunction as a people: We want the appearance of caring deeply for something, but we do not want to structure our shared life as if we actually believe it.
What’s more, we don’t want to acknowledge that this pandemic has actually shaped and transformed our shared life, and this bears itself out in our desire to do everything we can to make school “like it was before” at all costs. Our lives are not like they were before, any more than our lives were the same after 9/11, or after JFK’s assassination, or after World War II, or after the Spanish Flu pandemic. We are being transformed. The Corinthians wanted to say Jesus is Lord, but then not allow their daily lives to be transformed by that event. It didn’t work like that then, and it doesn’t work like that now.
What’s more, we don’t want to acknowledge that this pandemic has actually shaped and transformed our shared life, and this bears itself out in our desire to do everything we can to make school “like it was before” at all costs. Our lives are not like they were before, any more than our lives were the same after 9/11, or after JFK’s assassination, or after World War II, or after the Spanish Flu pandemic. We are being transformed. The Corinthians wanted to say Jesus is Lord, but then not allow their daily lives to be transformed by that event. It didn’t work like that then, and it doesn’t work like that now.
I see hope though. I see tremendous hope."
