Profound Seredipity

Read by School Archivist, Mark Wilkerson HERE.

Just before 8 am today, one of my B Form colleagues, Erl Houston, sent me a 2006 Halloween memory. I'm not sure how much I spent on my costume, but it couldn't have been more than $10. The resulting pose with Tim Brockway (C Form teacher) on the Recess Court in front of the Lower School is one for the ages (yes, it's in the Archives photo collection just to be sure). Erl echoed one of my oft repeated phrases from my Archives work, "I found this while looking for something else." You may debate the profundity of two middle aged men dressed up as pirates for a School Halloween parade, but it certainly brings to my mind some memorable swashbuckling times had over the years.

Earlier in the week, I received a request that led me to the Fall 1996 Bulletin in search of the St. Albans commencement address that year by former NCS Head, Mrs. Aggie Underwood. I was hoping her remarks were printed in full, but alas, they were not. I'm still looking for them. On the same page that showed Aggie hoisting her bowling ball as she made her point to the Class of 1996 about getting involved in one's community was the accompanying statement.

"Quietly, without fanfare, the commencement service was the occasion of another first. After the diplomas had been awarded, prayers of thanksgiving and celebration were offered by three members of the Class of 1996: Eli Cohen '96, senior class president, Hazem Abu Ghazaleh, senior warden, and Philip Navarro, senior prefect. Each prayed in his own tradition, first to Adonai, then to Allah, and finally to Jesus Christ. As Hebrew gave way to Arabic and Arabic to English, their prayers suggested the hope and the promise all the graduates carried with them as they ran out of the Cathedral and into the rest of their lives — to learn, to serve, and perhaps even to bowl."

This led me to the 1996 Commencement program where I read these thoughtful, unifying, and honestly beautiful prayers. They are shown in their entirety below in the order they were prayed, Saturday, June 8, 1996.

May the prayers of these now not-so-young men serve for you, like they did for me, as serendipitously sage and erudite guideposts, especially if you find yourself a bit uncentered and uncertain. The prayers seem to echo the Prophet Micah (6:8) -- "He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord ask from you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" If we can daily measure up to these ideals, I believe Aggie would agree that we're bowling strikes.