Love, and love alone, is what has, and always will, define us… by Bill Lacey

Tonight I am closing out my writings for the school year past. On behalf of the many fine staff members who comprise the Board of Directors for the NBEA, our “Family of Teachers”, let me say what needs to be said and is often overlooked…

 

What Giants you are…

 

I am daily made stronger in knowing you. I find my most peaceful life’s moments in celebrating our work together, here in our school system, the one WE created. What folly it is when outside forces try to define us. How can they possibly define, let alone rank and compare, our accomplishments? When they approach our field without love, they have become, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”.

 

Love, and love alone, is what has, and always will, define us…

 

Our work rises above the means and extremes. It can never be contained, nor measured, by paper, pencil and process. From behind their desks and spreadsheets, their ledgers and formulas, they secretly envy what we have wrought. Corinthians goes on to declare the basis of love, the basis for all teaching~

 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

 

On Monday, June 17th, as I was walking about Keith’s auditorium in preparation for the Kempton School’s Spring Concert, I flashed back to the last time I stood there in that capacity. It was the morning of Friday, December 14, 2012. As I was setting up music stands, a notification came through on my phone that a lone gunman had breached the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct. The news…was devastating.  Following those moments of evil incarnate, love came to Sandy Hook. It did so without fanfare, without the noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. It came, borne on the wings of children, teachers and parents. America brought love to Sandy Hook.

 

Before my Kempton Spring concert concluded this year, love again, was my reward. Rising from a seat and walking toward me was a young man in his late-twenties. “Mr. Lacey!”, he exclaimed loudly, his smile wide with joy. “Mr. Lacey, it’s me, Germaine…from Campbell School…”, and he laughed easily before he continued, “you probably thought I was dead, didn’t you..?”  And he was completely on-target. Germaine had it tough. Germaine wore the chip on his shoulder, from a lack of family compassion, like a gang symbol. Germaine forced you to confront his demons with him. And the staff at the Campbell, during Germaine’s time there, did just that. We force-fed him our brand of love and dedication. We wrapped him in profound caring. On our watch, Germaine would never be lost.

 

“I want to thank you”, he began, “for what you did for me. What ALL of you DID for me. I’m not dead. I work for a living and that pretty little thing there on the stage is mine. And I’m doing right by her…”

 

You see, that’s what confounds them…

 

These harvesters of souls.

 

They can’t quite grasp the job. How we aren’t like them. Slashing and harvesting the crop before it is finished. WE are the sowers of the seed. You can’t measure the sower without devastating the crop. In order to bring the beauty of the field into your home, you must deny it further opportunity for life. That’s why we will always be caught in this eternal struggle with these people who publicly deride us for the beauty of our earth. They walk amongst our best work, never seeing the new shoots, never witnessing the moment of sentient “birth”. They take “snapshots” of learning and believe they understand what it is we do…

 

But…no longer are we alone in the fields. There are new workers here today, and we must welcome them. They are the parents of our students who have chosen to cry out against the harvesters. They have taken on the noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. They are threatening the instability of the pasture and are standing with us, in ever greater number. They appreciate our “love’s labor” and the fields we have borne. They will stand with us…

 

And so, today, I thank you all for the wonders you have brought forth from this place. As we move forward into summer and the field flourishes, know this~

 

Protect, trust, hope and persevere.

 

It is a lovely dwelling place we have created together….