Find Time for Silence

Dear Atonement Families,

Good morning. I hope you and your children are becoming increasingly eager for the start of the school year. In the meantime—even in the midst of trips to the pool and bike rides and back-yard barbecuing—I encourage you to also find time for silence. The start of school represents the entry into a new season of the year, and new seasons are best commenced with some measure of reflection.

I read an essay the other day that has prompted me in this regard. During the summer I typically have the space and time to ponder my reading a bit more deeply than during the rest of the year. It was thus that the following passage from a Kathleen Norris (best know for the 1997 book The Cloister Walk) essay entitled “The Secret Ingredient” (2006) caught my attention: 

               Even in the 1960s, [Thomas] Merton recognized that the ever-increasing
               abundance of words coming at us by ever-increasing means was endangering the
               human capacity for listening. “All words have become alike,” he laments, “they’ve
               all been reduced to the level of the commercial.” That dread flattening out of
               speech that was emerging fifty years ago, when Merton first took note of it, has
               surely come to fruition in our time.

In such an “over-messaged” culture, Norris wonders whether we still posses the sensitivity to receive the faith that “comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17). By 2019, we find that our culture has only traveled further down this cacophonous path. Just as Norris saw greater cause for concern than Merton could have imagined decades earlier, a growing number of cultural observers in our own day point to the emerging consensus of brain science and social research regarding the pathologies attending the ubiquity of flashing screens in young peoples’s lives. Increasingly, even tech industry insiders are quietly opting out of the digital regime when it comes to their own children. (See, for instance, the article “A Dark Consensus About Screens Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley” in last year’s The New York Times.)

At The Atonement Academy, our rootedness in the Catholic and classical educational traditions is the foundation for a prophetic stance toward contemporary culture. Technology, for instance, is seen as a tool, not a lifestyle, not an end in itself, not the advent of a new age that will reconfigure the old truths about human nature and the wise approach to its formation. We’ve probably all heard the saying, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” This phrase could be summary of a Catholic classical educational philosophy.

Parents will sometimes ask me for suggestions on the best way their son or daughter can spend the summer vacation. Here is my encouragement: as you plot your course for the remaining weeks of summer, I pray you will lead your families into pursuits and pastimes that require real attention—to ideas, to the creation, to other people. As you do, you will not only find yourselves having fun, but also preparing your children for their ultimate end. You will also be acclimating them to appreciate the calm, conversation, and depth that make up the unique ethos of an Atonement education.
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On a different note, I would like to share one more thing with you. Attached as an appendix of sorts is an organizational chart Father Lewis and I shared with the faculty and staff yesterday. In many ways it is a fairly straight forward example of the genre. What I hope you will notice, however, is our choice to invert the traditional orientation of such a chart. At the top are “Atonement Families” and “Atonement Teachers,” while only toward the bottom do we arrive at administrative roles.

What does this mean? At the very least, I want it to put us in mind of our Lord’s words in the Gospel of Matthew—“He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” Those of us assigned official leadership roles are called to use our positions to serve. You have probably known of leaders who viewed their roles in this way, and witnessed how this conviction can change the atmosphere of a whole organization. For parents, this chart also details the order by which you should address any concern or grievance: teacher, department chair or team leader, dean, etc.

Again, I am excited for the year to begin. I hope you are, too. As it approaches, let us continue to pray for one another.

Your servant,

Matthew David Watson
Head of School