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LANTERN Presentation High School Parent Newsletter | November 2018
Dear Members of the Presentation Community, I have always found the onset of fall and the coming of winter to be wrought with mixed emotion. The joys of these times bring opportunity for family time, celebration of holidays, and often bring the best out of communities. At the same time, we recognize that many in our community are not as fortunate. For the homeless and those in poverty, the coming seasons represents a true struggle keeping families fed, warm, and free of the health problems that come with colder weather. Something about this season has seemed particularly challenging. While I look forward to family and community time of the approaching holidays, I also sense a local and national community with significant division. There is no question that this has been a tough few months for our psyche. Between the Kavanaugh hearings, the hysteria surrounding a pipe bomber driven by partisan motive, and the hate-driven tragedy in Pittsburgh, we are all left searching for answers in an environment too prone to filtered truth. We are continually called by our political leaders to see each other as the opposition, even the enemy. Both sides point fingers at the other to find blame and the source of our woes. While this is not unique to our times, it does feel more normalized in today’s culture. Where do we find hope in these times? How do we harness the joys of the coming season to combat the challenges we are faced with as a community? While I will not pretend to have resolute answers to these questions, I will leave you with some readings that have energized me recently that suggest two primary themes for finding hope—we need to think better and act in solidarity. • One of the largest studies ever conducted on polarization in America by the non-profit group More in Common USA offers some interesting insight into where we find ourselves as a nation. Instead of an image of a polarized America, the study found that a relatively small percentage of people (14%) at the extremes are driving national discourse and the agenda while the vast majority of people—what they deem the “exhausted majority”—are united in their opposition to polarization, feel forgotten in public discourse, are flexible and not ideological in their viewpoints on policy, and believe common ground can be found.
• A book I picked up at Junior Retreat from the Jesuit Retreat Center offers some opportunity for contemplation on how we think. I would definitely recommend Alan Jacob’s “How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds.” Jacob’s basic premise is that we aren’t very good at thinking and are increasingly surrounded by platforms that misdirect. In the age of social media and “alternative facts” we succumb to willful incomprehension and even worse “toxic suspicion” of each other. As Jacob states, “This is a profoundly unhealthy situation…because it prevents us from recognizing others as our neighbors...we may all too easily forget that political and social and religious differences are not the whole of human experience.” He offers great insight into how thinking better means we can act better towards each other. • Finally, while the challenges of these times may call us to question hope, we are called to serve and be in radical solidarity with all of God’s people. Another book from retreat, Paul Growley’s “The Unmoored God: Believing in a Time of Dislocation” offers hope in reconciling with the challenges of winter and our society. For Growley, we are called to solidarity with the crucified, those who suffer from the kind of poverty that leads to death and those faced with natural and human-made catastrophes. These same realities that make believing and hope so difficult also keep us grounded in the world. These tragedies, according to Growley, are “a call to action and to fundamental transformation of society.” They “compel us to the truth that love ‘ought to express itself in deeds rather than mere words.” As we approach the holiday drives season and we move past another divisive election, perhaps we all can search for the common ground the unifies us, learn to think better, and join in solidarity with those who need us in the spirit of “Not Words, But Deeds.” Have a blessed Thanksgiving and holiday season. Best, Tim Case Vice Principal of Student Activities