LETTER FROM OUR CHAPLAINS
"Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:11-12 The K-12 Chapel theme for the
2020-2021 school year was “Building Beloved Community.” Rooted in Scripture, the idea of a beloved community is God’s hope for creation and relationship. Beloved is a theological concept that is rooted in this idea of “let us love one another because love comes from God.” It’s a recognition of people being divinely loved - each and every person being divinely loved. This essential formation of our beings as being loved changes the way we understand, move, and shape the world around us when we keep it at the forefront of our understanding of ourselves and each other. A beloved community is one where all people understand that they are beloved and that their neighbor is beloved, too. Recognizing this belovedness allows for transformational communities devoted to love, mercy, reconciliation, and justice. Becoming a beloved community is an aspirational mindset. God’s love allows us to live in love, and only when a community is truly doing and pursuing that can a beloved community become tangible. In so many ways, the past year allowed us to explore in Chapel what it means to reach for this type of community not just in word, but in deed. We aspired to be a community that cared deeply for each other by tending the sick, soothing the suffering, giving rest to the weary, and shielding the joyous, all for the sake of God’s love. From daily videos from Mrs. Brandon and Questions of the Day during “Chapel
The Rev. Whitney Kirby, left, and Ashley Brandon
on the Screen” at the Upper School to welcoming guest speakers and theologians, finally gathering together in person again, and Eucharist for the graduating class of 2021, this has been a pilgrimage year in the wilderness that we have only survived because of each other. As we head into a season of much-needed rest and restoration, I’ll leave you with two questions we asked every member of our community (students, faculty, and staff) this year: What are the attributes of a community where you have felt beloved? How will you make St. Andrew’s a beloved community where those are our attributes, too? The year has ended, but our service to a beloved community at St. Andrew’s continues. Thanks be to God!
The Rev. Whitney Kirby Upper School Chaplain
Ashley Brandon Lower and Middle School Chaplain
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School // sasaustin.org // 5
