The Hope of a New Notebook

A few years ago, someone asked a question at a staff meeting that produced a surprising amount of enthusiasm: What is your favorite school supply to buy new?

I don't remember everyone’s answers, but I remember the energy in the room. People had opinions. There were devotees of particular pens. People who loved a fresh box of crayons or newly sharpened pencils. Some felt deeply about notebooks. Others about planners, folders, or organizational systems that promised that this would finally be the year when everything stayed exactly where it belonged.

And underneath all that enthusiasm was something more: hope.

A new school year carries a particular kind of hope. With a clean backpack, sharpened pencils, blank sheets of notebook paper, everything is new. No matter what happened last year, this one is a new beginning.

Maybe that is part of what we love about those supplies. They remind us that we are still becoming.

At our baptisms, we make promises about the kind of people we hope, with God's help, to become. In the words of the Baptismal Covenant, we answer questions. One of them is this: "Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?"

Will you continue?

Our tradition understands that faith is something we keep learning, that there is always another page, always another question. There is always another opportunity to practice forgiveness, courage, generosity, and love.

Perhaps that is why the beginning of a school year can speak even to those of us who haven't sat in a classroom for decades. God is still teaching us, and by God's grace, none of us is finished yet.

So, sharpen the pencils. Open the notebook. Say a prayer for everyone beginning school this month. Then, ask God what you are ready to learn next.