by CCW | 9 September 2018 19:00
The tradition of our first two Chapel services at the beginning of term is for the head boy and head girl to read two short Scripture lessons: one from Genesis (Gen. 1.1-5) and the other from The Gospel according to St. John (John 1.1-5). They are powerful and significant readings about which it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the Chapel would not be able to contain all of the books that comment upon, reflect, and allude to these two passages, books that embrace a large range of cultures and intellectual disciplines over a vast array of ages.
How to think about the beginning of term? In Chapel it is about recalling how there is a beginning for all of us because there is something there before us, a beginning that is ultimately about the principles of education that guide and direct the School. Begin with God, the beginning without beginning, and everything else comes after, especially the things that belong to our intellectual and spiritual life and which inform all our other doings. Chapel is an integral part of the School and speaks to the idea of the whole School and to the wholeness of individuals.
The two readings in concert are enormously influential and central to a large number of discourses both within and between different cultures and religions. The idea of creation and of the Creator as an intellectual principle is common to Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought, for instance, and all three in a creative relation to Greek philosophy. ‘He speaks and it is,’ as the Qur’an suggests, showing how it is influenced by both texts. The continuing engagement between these texts and the works of Plato and Aristotle all contribute to the idea of the cosmos as intelligible and to the rich tradition of ethical and philosophical reflection on how we think nature and ultimately ourselves.
These two passages also belong to the early modern developments in natural philosophy, even to the works of Newton and Darwin, and to all manner of subsequent debates. They have their counterparts, too, in the works of Hinduism and Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism. They belong to our constant reflection on what it means to think the natural world; in short, to think the world as being thinkable.
They belong as well to the particular history of the School – to its religious and enlightenment origins – captured so profoundly in the King’s Collegiate and College Motto, “Deo, Legi, Regi, Gregi”: “For God, for the Law, for the King and for the People”. It is an enlightenment idea that the King is not above the Law, reflecting an aspect of constitutional thinking that is really quite profound and often overlooked and even denied in our current disorders. Note, too, that this history counters the false idea that the Enlightenment is somehow anti-religious. One of the current challenges is about getting our narratives right in the face of so many false dichotomies and questionable assumptions such as the notion of science versus religion.
Every year, it seems, it is necessary to give an apologia, meaning an explanation, for Chapel, an apologia pro vita scholae, an explanation for the life of the School captured in the Chapel experience. It is not about the faith commitments or non-faith identities of students and faculty. It is about the place of religion in education, first and foremost, and about the School’s commitment to its faith history and tradition. There is simply no area of intellectual inquiry that does not derive from religious philosophy. The gaping hole in many schools is precisely about religion intellectually considered. At King’s-Edgehill, Chapel is an integral part of the educational project that provides a space to consider the kinds of questions that never go away and to do so with respect for the diversities of cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and religious identities.
We sing, say, pray and do things together. We stand to praise – to recognise and wonder about what is worthy of consideration. We sit to listen and think – to ponder the mysteries of our world, ourselves, and God as revealed in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures but with reference to other cultures, religions, and philosophies. We kneel to pray – to consider our own “thoughts, words and deeds”and our concerns for our world and for others. Standing, sitting, kneeling – this is the athletic aspect of Chapel, if you will. Sitting, listening and thinking is the academic aspect of Chapel. Serving, reading Scripture, leading prayers and organizing things in Chapel is the leadership and service component in Chapel. Singing and speaking together is the Aesthetic or Arts aspect of Chapel. In other words, Chapel relates to all four pillars of the School, to the whole being of the School.
Classes are mandatory; Sports is mandatory; Cadets is mandatory; Chapel is mandatory. Yet, religion, like learning, cannot be forced. It is about engaging with ideas and ways of thinking that belong to the great traditions of spiritual wisdom. Those traditions speak profoundly to what it means to be an individual, to be a member of a community, and to be connected and concerned about others and about our world and day. Chapel provides a space to learn more deeply about respect and dignity; thus the ethics of autonomy, the individual in his or her personal sense of agency, are complemented and corrected by the ethics of communityand the ethics of divinity. The Chapel experience reflects, I hope, the idea of ‘the dignity of difference,’ to use Rabbi Jonathan Sacks rich and insightful term. In an uncertain world, Chapel does not try to offer dogmatic certainties but rather the confidence to think more thoughtfully together about ourselves and our world.
Our beginning is simply about our being recalled to the principles that shape and inform, enlighten and challenge all of us in our life together at King’s-Edgehill School. The challenge, in the words of the Edgehill motto, is about our faithfulness, fideliter, to those ideals and principles. Lose those and you lose everything. And so we begin yet again.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2018/09/09/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-3-september/
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