Love Came Down at Christmas

Not too long ago at the Lafayette Campus, I was helping kids get out of cars and get on their way to class, when I opened the door for one of our PreK-3 students. He got out, and I helped him put on his book sack. He was also carrying a plastic grocery bag that he was very interested in. As I was walking him to the sidewalk, I asked him, "What’s in the bag?" He looked up at me and answered with one word, "everything."

 

It was one of those unexpected, profound moments that life throws at us from time to time. "Everything." Wow. So this hit me on a couple of different levels. First, how complicated our lives become as we grow up. There was a time when "everything" could fit in a grocery bag, everything that mattered. It made me think of simpler times, of my childhood growing up and playing with friends, exploring the woods, building forts and defending them against all invaders, and the nostalgia of all those memories. It was a lovely trip down memory lane. But more importantly, since we are in the season of Advent, the season of waiting and contemplation, it made me wonder if there are ways for me to simplify my life, to distill it down to its very essentials. What would that look like? What would be in my grocery bag?

 

We talk a good bit about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs here at ESA, and how we can meet those needs for our students and faculty. If you’ve never seen Maslow’s pyramid, the most basic version of it has five levels of needs that have to be met before the next level can be fully obtained, although there is a lot of overlap between levels. The needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Over the past three years we have had to focus on some of the "lower" needs (physiological and safety) more than is typical in a school setting, and I am very proud of how well we accomplished that. But more typically, we work on the upper three levels: love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. These are where things like self-esteem, confidence, friendship, family, respect for and by others, creativity, morality and problem solving all reside.

 

All of us here at ESA are likely blessed with pretty good fulfillment of the first two levels of Maslow’s pyramid. For me, it all hinges on that third level—love and belonging. If I had to distill everything down to one thing in my life’s grocery bag, it would be love. Love of God, love of neighbor and love of self, which also happens to be the theme of our chapel program and the core of our school’s Episcopal Identity. For me, that is the message of this season, whether you are Christian or not. The idea that "Love came down at Christmas" is a beautiful thought (to quote a poem from Christina Rosetti). Here are the first and last stanzas of that poem.

 

 

May you and your family have a blessed holiday filled with peace and love. Areté!