This week is Community Week at our Redeemer Parish Day School. Yesterday morning students and their teachers — from our 2’s all the way up to our 3rd graders — worked together to assemble 200 breakfast bags to donate to Beans & Bread.
Afterwards the whole school gathered in the church, joined by several of our Redeemer staff members, for chapel led by school chaplain Rebecca Ogus, a.k.a. “Mother O.” Students of all ages were given the opportunity to speak and share out loud what “community” means to them.
One student talked about how teams require community, like in baseball, soccer and basketball. Another lifted up a necklace made of beads and told us how each bead in a necklace is like one member of a community, and we need them all to make a beautiful necklace. Others offered that our school community is like family.
A couple of Redeemer staff members also chimed in. Director of our Center for Well Being Thomasina Wharton sang a song about how community grows and grows, and used a colorful expandable “breathing ball” to illustrate what she meant. Another staff member invited everyone to turn and look at the stained glass window behind the altar; just like it is one great window made of lots of differently shaped and colored pieces of glass, so too our one big community is made of lots of different people, all caring for one another. (“Community and Caring start with the same letter!”)
I was still thinking about and reflecting on yesterday’s chapel time this morning, as a group of clergy and faith leaders from BUILD gathered for our monthly meeting, hosted for the first time at the Islamic Society of Baltimore in Windsor Mill. After
our meeting, Shaykh Yaseen Shaikh gave several of us a tour, which included popping in on the young students at their Al-Ramah School. One of them led the call to prayer for the community; another chanted from memory a portion of the Qu’ran.
I thought of our students, and their students, and children all around our city, our nation, our world; all part of our one global community of human beings, all made in the image of our Creator.
So today, I continue to think about, reflect on, and pray for our One Beloved Community.
What does “community” mean to you?
Love,
Cristina