October 2012 Volume Twenty-Two Number 2
Dear Parents and Guardians, As most of you would have guessed, we don’t just dash off the Belcroft at 3:00 pm on the last day of the month for publication as the calendar page turns. In fact, as I prepare some thoughts for the second issue of the 2012-2013 school year, I am very conscious of the date: September 11th. I think back to who I was on that date in 2001, a fairly green (and much thinner) academic assistant principal in Jersey City. I remember wondering why the dean of students and another teacher were pacing outside my first period AP English class, waiting for the bell to ring. I remember being quickly disabused of my initial assumption that some mischance had occurred. The rest is more of a blur: assembling and dismissing the students, comforting faculty with relatives working in the city, finagling a way for two stranded Staten Island freshmen to get home across the Bayonne Bridge that evening. Two memories aren’t a blur, though: watching from the roof of the school as the second tower fell and hearing the endless stream of sirens over the next two days as ambulances raced to the triage station at the river front near Ellis Island. As some of you are aware, my most recent assignment was in a New Jersey county which basically consisted of bedroom communities for the financial district in New York. Every day I walked past a monument there to the seven alumni who died that day a decade ago. Each year at graduation time, I tried to find a moment to tell one or two seniors, “Your father would be very proud of you,” speaking on behalf of a man who lost his ability to do so himself on that day. It is amazing to pause and realize that our current freshmen were three years old when the events of September 11th happened. They have perforce no memory of that day when our national feeling of security was forever compromised, no knowledge of the date except as an historical one to be classed with D-Day or Armistice Day. Soon, the Class of 2019 will be composed of students been born after these tragic events, born into that changed world. What lesson can we adults in the La Salle family learn on this glorious early fall day by reflecting on such memories and changes? Perhaps they all point to the same dilemma and a possible way to address it. We need to accept that life both comes at us blindingly fast and can in an instant be forever changed. That young man who was a toddler on 9/11/01 will be off to college before you know it. That senior you nag to get out the door, in the car, and to school on time every morning (hopefully having coerced
him to put something more than a Tastykake and Gatorade in his stomach!) will be married and presenting you with grandchildren in a space of time that may not seem much longer. How can we respond to this dynamic, both as parents and educators? Possibly the best hunch I have comes from a meditation by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI on the topic of vision, understood in a special way. Father Rolheiser observes: To ‘really see’ someone, especially someone who looks up to you, is to give that person an important blessing. In a gaze of recognition, of understanding, in an appreciative look, there is deep blessing. Often, it is not so important that we say much to those for whom we are significant, but it is very important that we see them. Good kings and queens see their people; good parents see their kids; good teachers see their students; good priests see their parishioners; good coaches see their players; good executives see their employees. However many of these categories some of us fall into, the point is worth all of us noting, particularly on this day of shattering images. Take some time before next month’s Belcroft is published to really see your son: the challenges he is facing, the achievements he celebrates, the man he is becoming. Take a moment to see him at his studies, in practice, performance, or competition; take joy in him when he is playful or at leisure. Look often enough, see carefully enough, and I believe what you will discover is this: the face of the God who loves you and your family, who blesses you and protects you from danger, who has a plan for that rumpled young man with the Pre-Calc book in one hand and IPod in the other. Let us thank Him for His goodness and believe in His faithfulness. Fraternally,
Brother James L. Butler, FSC President