Dean's Message

Isn't it funny how September feels a little bit like a new year? Perhaps this is in part because we have all been students at sometime, and that for teachers and students September is truly a new year and a new beginning. For others as well; those who till the ground, even as they are enjoying the harvest they are looking ahead and preparing for a new season. A new season indeed. As the evenings grow cooler, the nights grow longer, and the forests change colour, we all sense the times are changing. We feel in our bones that the warm and languid days of summer, of which there were perhaps too few this year, are giving over to brisker ones, and that it is time to get on with the things that a new season demands.

Of course, it does not take much living to discover that the seasons come and go. But those who grow in wisdom soon see that while it is important to tend to each seasons’ rhythm, there is something constant in living. The wise teacher knows that she is always a student and that the best lesson is yet to come. The wise farmer finds joy in putting hands into good earth in the promise of a perpetual harvest.

As people of faith, are these things not so for you and me? Are they not as true for our souls as for our physical lives? As disciples, we are students learning to follow in the Way of Christ; and as we learn we are called to share what we have come to know and believe, and so it is that we become teachers. As servants of Christ, we tend the rich soil of God's creation to take our part in feeding a world hungry both in body and spirit.

So, let us get on with this new season, and with its particular tasks and opportunities, and indeed to seek its blessings. Let us also seek the wisdom to learn and grow into that which is unending and eternal, the Way of Christ and His New Creation.