Seneca Graduates Urged to Continue Living for the ‘Kairos Moments’, Told ‘People Who We Become Matters More Than Title We Achieve’

By D ouglas D. M elegari Staff Writer

TABERNACLE—Two days prior to Seneca High School’s June 16 graduation ceremony, Principal Bradley Bauer woke up to a bit of a surprise from the Class of 2023, one of what would be the “Kairos moments” that Senior Class President Hannah Cutts urged her fellow graduates to “continue living for” as they enter the next chapter of their lives.

According to Bauer, and as also described by Cutts, members of Seneca’s Class of 2023 showed up at his house “in the middle of the night” and camped in his front yard, waiting for him to wake up so that they could surprise him.

That they did, according to Cutts, “when

Mr. Bauer woke up to discover many of us had spent the night in tents in his front yard.”

“I appreciated that guys, that is something that will live with me forever,” declared Bauer during the school’s commencement exercises.

Cutts, in her commencement speech, explained that the “Ancient Greeks, who are well known for their wisdom,” had two different words for the definition of time: Chronos, which refers to the passage of time, and Kairos, which stands for the kind of time that cannot be measured, only experienced.

Chronos, she said, “is the kind of time we measure as the clock ticks in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years,” while Kairos “is experienced in moments – where time seems to stop, where you say it doesn’t get any better than this and that fills the soul.”

“Our days here at Seneca have been filled with Chronos time – the many hours spent in class, on the practice field, in rehearsal or studying for that big test,” Cutts declared. “However, the time that has been most special is the Kairos time –those moments we will always remember.”

She cited, among many, spending the night in Bauer’s front yard as an example of one of her Kairos moments, though she noted “each of us have our own list.” However, one thing she was confident of is that for all members of the graduating class, “this year was full of special Kairos moments, starting here on this brand-new turf field” in which the 250 graduates were seated for the commencement exercises held in Tabernacle Township.

The high school’s slogan is “Seneca

Family,” and it also happens to account for the institution’s Instagram and Twitter hashtags/handles, but Cutts declared, “‘Seneca Family’ is so much more than our Instagram name and our hashtag.”

Rather, she maintained, it represents “Seneca family staff members who always bend over backwards to help you, being greeted every morning by administrators’ smiling faces at the door, the gym erupting in cheers at a Unified basketball game, a place where everyone is supported and loved, a place where all are encouraged to be ourselves and a place where we always felt safe.”

“Seneca family is what made this place our home for the past 4 years,” Cutts asserted.

The president of the Class of 2023 noted that kids often get asked, “‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’”, but See SENECA/ Page G12