Snow Day (!) and an MLK Talk that didn’t happen

After being lobbied by everyone–including my daughter who was superstitiously flushing ice cubes down the toilet (apparently taking this action ensures a snow day), I made the decision to close school for a snow day today just before 5:00 a.m. this morning. It was not a hard call—ice was building up and more icy, snowy weather was on the way. Right now in fact, I am looking out the window at hard snow blowing quickly by. Such decisions are not easy—every school head seems to have stories about such a decision going wrong. When bad winter weather comes calling, a snow day can be an easy win though—everyone, most everyone, loves a snow day.

While the Snow Day (!) decision was not difficult, it meant I would not to be able to give a talk I had been planning for some time to mark Martin Luther King Day (given that we have a day of service on Monday, my talk was set for today). St. George’s Independent School draws from around fifty zip codes, and we have students of a wide array of economic, geographic, and racial backgrounds. I believe the Martin Luther King holiday is not only a remarkably important date on our national calendar, it is a particularly important one for our school.

Given the fractious socio-political environment in which we find ourselves nationally, this date has even greater significance. That said, it is not easy to stand in front of a large and very diverse group of thoughtful and inquisitive young people and speak any message of meaning in the face of an environment where our national dialogue has devolved into profanity and name calling, ad hominem attacks and school yard posturing. Have no doubt—our kids are paying attention.

Have no doubt—our kids are paying attention.

They hear us yelling back in anger at the television news; they notice us feeling more and more powerless against the rip tide of national bi-furcation.

So today I was going to speak about Zacchaeus, a Jericho tax-collector Jesus calls toward a different life path and James Brown, who after initially doubting Martin Luther King’s non-violent approach became a man who helped calm the water in Boston in the aftermath of King’s assassination. I had the music all queued up (I have linked the songs I was going to play as kids entered and departed below—it was going to be loud and awesome!).

I will admit, however, that I was reconsidering the content of my talk based on current news, which I am certain have disquieted many in our school community. As a result, I started to think about revising my plan. Not to recognize and name the real issues of cultural division in our nation fails our kids. The problem: I don’t know how to do it well.With that in mind, I scanned what I had written for bits and pieces that might be particularly relevant. Here is what I found (please forgive the lack of cohesiveness):

• We have just finished a year where so much news was stuffed into every day that it seemed to be more of a decade than a year. If you say you kept up, you are either superhuman, dangerously sleep-deprived, or a liar. No one could read enough, watch enough, reflect and analyze enough to make sense of it all.
• We tend to look at current events and our current specific moment in history as if we invented complexity, that everyone that lived before us lived in simpler times. I do not believe this is true—I believe it is convenient. It is a convenient way to find comfort in imagining the past—almost any part of it—was somehow better, easier, simpler.
• While we can’t avoid crucibles in history, we can determine who we as individuals will be as we traverse them.
• James Brown and Simon Peter and Ross Peters and each of you are deeply flawed, at least somewhat broken, and yet we can each make decisions to try to make the world a better place, to try to help a broken world heal.

I am ambivalent about missing my opportunity to speak today. Obviously, there will be other chances, other moments to have the microphone when the weather is not likely to intervene; however, I hate to miss any opportunity to call our students to hold themselves to a higher mark than is represented in blockbuster stories and screaming headlines ticking across the bottom of our television screens.

“I hate to miss any opportunity to call our students to hold themselves to a higher mark than is represented in blockbuster stories and screaming headlines ticking across the bottom of our television screens.”

Perhaps the best answer to my quandary about what to say to our students is best handled through action, not words. On Monday, our students and families will have a number of opportunities to participate in community service. Maybe it is time to stop simply reflecting on and analyzing what ails us and get to work.

For now check out the Godfather of Soul, James Brown:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCq_juFqcyY&w=560&h=315][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMoEXGbdyc0&w=560&h=315][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF_rZrH4yBY&w=560&h=315][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvltTXEg5kI&w=560&h=315]