School Days

School year beginnings have always been important to me. I look at these beginnings like I look at the New Year. As a listmaker, I love to write down my goals and design plans to achieve those goals. Without that sort of planning, I would gain little.

Sometimes people ask me how I do so much. With an inward chuckle, I tell them I don't do that much. At least, I don't think I do. Maybe I do get more accomplished because of the plan. This reminds me of that adage, "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." Another favorite of mine is lifted from Alexander Pope's "Essay of Man": "A mighty maze, but not without a plan."

Getting ready for a new school year can be daunting, especially if you are new at it. Planning takes time. And working the plan can also be frustrating because no plan, ever how good, is perfect. Plans need to be tweaked, redesigned to fit a particular need.

One of the first important items I reclaim at the beginning of each schoolyear is a prayer. Over the years, I have adopted different prayers. At first, I adopted our school prayer with my children in mind. It was a prayer for them to embrace. I wanted it to be their prayer. But over the years, I've learned that my children will not automatically embrace something I want. Particularly when they realize I want it for them! Oh, the education we get when we try to educate our own.

I have learned that if I want my children to embrace something, I need to do it first. So for the past few years, my back-to-school prayer is for myself. Thomas Aquinas wrote the following prayer many years ago. (If you've not arrived at Aquinas in your education, you are in for a treat. It is humbling to be in the presence of genius.) I hope it comes to mean as much to you as it has for me. And every year it means more.

Creator of all things,
true source of Light and Wisdom,
lofty source of all Being,
graciously let a ray of Your Brilliance penetrate
into the darkness of my understanding
and take from me the double darkness
in which I have been born,
sin and ignorance.

Give me a sharp sense of understanding,
a retentive memory,
and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally.
Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations,
and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm.
Point out the beginning,
direct the progress,
help in the completion.
Through Christ our Lord.

St. Thomas Aquinas

A Student's Prayer
(John W. Peterson)

God, the all-wise,
and Creator of the human intellect,
guide our search for truth and knowledge,
all our thoughts and ways direct.
Help us build the towers of learning,
that would make us wise, astute.
On the rock of holy Scripture, truth revealed and absolute.

O how vast the shores of learning--
there are still uncharted seas.
And they call to bold adventure,
those who turn from sloth and ease.
But we need Thy hand to guide us,
in the studies we pursue.
And the presence of Thy Spirit, to illumine all we do.

May the things we learn, so meager,
never lift our hearts in pride.
Till in foolish self-reliance,
we would wander from Thy side.
Let them only bind us closer, Lord, to Thee,
in whom we find very fountain-head of
wisdom,
light
and life
of all mankind.