The Practice of Praise
Dear Members of The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara Community,
Yesterday we hosted our Hike-a-Thon. Some children loved the event so much they asked if we could start doing it once a week. To see the children holding hands, looking at birds, taking breaks sitting in the grass, and running hard (some kindergarteners completed six miles!) softened every adult's heart. The joy of the children made one recall the importance of praise, the importance of being "joyful though you have considered all the facts" (words from Wendell Berry), the importance of our responsibility to them.
The Dalai Lama says, "Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can."
Practicing praise; being joyful and expanding the heart; benefiting others; not wasting our precious human lives -- these capacities feel more important than ever, living as we do in a time seemingly bent on emphasizing only the problems, divisions, fears, and catastrophes. Though we live among tough realities indeed, it's crucial -- for the sake of the children -- that we neither deny nor dodge the preponderance of our blessings. As the great old song has it:
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
We are grateful to those who made the Hike-a-Thon such a success: the children; the teachers and administrative team; you, the parents and caregivers; and the various volunteers who helped with setup and cleanup and who helped the children stay on route. We could not have done it without you! And a special tip of the hat to Laura Macker for overseeing this event.
Please click the link below to see pictures from the morning. Also: there's still time to help us reach our goal of 100% participation!
https://waldorfsantabarbara.org/hikeathon
On another note, please send school-related pictures to Alexis Schoppe Cronk at alexis@waldorfsantabarbara.org as she is putting together our yearbook.
With great gratitude,
The WSSB Admin Team
P.S. The poem of the day is by Rainer Maria Rilke:
PRAISE
O tell me Poet what you do? – I praise.But the deathly and the monstrous,How do you accept them, bear them? – I praise.But the nameless, the anonymous.How, Poet, can you still invoke it? – I praise.Under every costume, every mask of us,What right have you to be true? – I praise.Or that the calm and the impetuousShould know you, as star and storm? – Because I praise.
PPS Here is Aretha Franklin singing the great old song (best watched in quiet, without distractions), a shattering performance that makes one proud to be a human being:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBKwV6oNYvw