February 2013 Volume Twenty-Two Number 6
Dear Parents and Guardians, One of the more pleasant expectations of my job is that I travel from time to time to areas where a critical mass of our alumni have settled to reconnect them with the current life of the school and thank them for their continuing support. One such area is the Gulf Coast of Florida, so I made a trip down there during exam week to see some of those good men. The travel schedule required that I spend one night in a hotel in Sarasota. I arrived in time to take a walk in the early evening. Everything was as I expected: the deeply tanned heading to and from the beach; shoppers galore; men with three possible accessories – a cane, a small yapping dog, or both; women in far greater numbers sipping chardonnay in groups of three or four, dinner menus in hand. At 4:30 pm. Snowbirds captured in their natural habitat. The next morning at breakfast in the hotel, it was different. At the table adjacent to mine sat six older Amish persons, three couples apparently, dressed identically, only the colors differing: the women in their white bonnets, the men all wearing sturdy shoes and suspenders, bearded without moustaches. They spoke that variant of Old German we casually call Pennsylvania Dutch, occasionally lobbing in an English word like “Everglades” or “pelican” when needed. The men did 90% of the talking; one woman never spoke at all. At one point they all began jumping up and looking excitedly at the Gulf beach across the way. I expected to see a tsunami heading right for us, or at least a seaplane landing. What I saw instead was two other pairs of Amish women beachwalking, one pair fussing with the sea gulls, something no one over the age of seven does at the Jersey Shore. I don’t know if my breakfast companions were happy to see them enjoying the morning sun or looking to make a positive identification prior to calling the Amish anonymous tip hotline to report some violation of cultural norms. What’s the connection? The retirees spending the winter in Florida were in context; they were the people I expected to see. I have no idea what would bring the Pennsylvania Dutch to the Gulf Coast (though I presume it wasn’t a horse and buggy). We expect to see them in Lancaster County or in the Reading Terminal Market. Out of context their appearance causes some puzzlement, a difficulty in reading what’s going on here in light of one’s previous scripts.
Context is important, critical at times. In fact, I think it is the primary reason for choosing a La Salle College High School education for your sons. Many good schools exist and can demonstrate good college outcomes. Few can provide the total environment we enjoy here at La Salle, one which creates such an extraordinary context for the ordinary business of teaching and learning: • One which teaches that success is an intermediate, not an ultimate end. It’s great to be successful, to achieve, to win. But we always do so for a reason, have goals like building up the community, demonstrating gratitude for what we have been given, adding to our capacity to be of service, or even simply glorifying God; • One which teaches that while it’s important to know, it’s more essential to think, perfectly acceptable to question, always necessary to seek to understand the opposite viewpoint in its context; • One that appreciates the value of sacrifice – that made by parents who certainly could have found other pleasant uses for $75,000 but who have chosen to invest it in smoothing a son’s path towards a whole, wholesome, and holy life, that made by teachers and staff who choose to sacrifice many extrinsic rewards to lead and contribute to such meaningful lives; • One that replaces the notion of classmate with that of a brotherhood, but a brotherhood which does not function as an exclusionary fraternity, but rather an open, tolerant, and inclusive community, recognizing all as brother and sister, particularly the unfortunate and marginalized; • One that teaches that while independence of thought and action is a value, responsibility and commitment are far more important ones. Thriving in an atmosphere of “wise freedom” in fact requires great self-discipline and focus; • That God is present, not just when we pray but in all the people and events of our lives. It is this context in which we all, teachers and parents, administration and staff, work together to help our young men complete the tricky business of adolescence successfully. Yet this work itself has another context, one provided by Him who identified the context for his own work so succinctly in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, “I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.” As we enter what can be winter’s most trying month, one where optimism and perspective alike can be particularly elusive, let us do so united in that prayer for your sons, our sons: that they may have life and have it to the full. Fraternally,
Brother James L. Butler, FSC President