FROM OUR CHAPLAIN

Many times throughout this year, I have been asked by a number of people how to choose their friends so that they experience good friendships.

This week, our Year 6 School Chapel concentrated on how to choose our friends by listening and paying attention to our own and their values.

Using the metaphor, we are the seed, and our friends are the good soil around us, the students were able to take their time, to work out what are the values they want in their friends who are in their inner circle and therefore, the closest to them who will help them grow as human beings.

This aspect of friendship is very real for a young person because spiritually, they need friends around them who will let them have boundaries so that they grow in their values and learn how to live them no matter the peer pressure not to, or the teenage year dramas that can often cloud our thinking, judgement and way of acting.

Now the students have a blueprint to pick friends who only help them be who they are, help them walk in their own values and each of them flourish as human beings, because of the wonderful friendships that they have valued and worked on in their early Middle School years at the College.

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As this goes to print, I also acknowledge the death of Queen Elizabeth II.  May she rest in peace and rise in glory and all her years of service for our world, be rewarded in heaven.

It marks the passing of a significant icon in our culture and history.  We hold her family in our prayers and acknowledge that this will be a time of mourning for many.

I share with you a prayer, for the death of someone whose life has impacted so many and which will affect us in many ways and draw to our minds, other griefs and losses.

In Times of Change

God,
Author of time and change,
Who guides the seasons
In your eternal work for good,
We acknowledge those in our lives,
Who through birth, life, relationship, role, fame or death,
Mark seasons and periods in our lives.
Either individually or collectively.
Those such as parents, siblings, grandparents, leaders,
And those famous and infamous.
We give thanks for the good,
We lament the bad.
We take courage and inspiration from strong examples set.
For dedication, commitment, duty over self,
Service over selfishness,
Love
And care
And grace.
We seek to learn from poor examples experienced.
Seeking to forgive and be forgiven as needed.
Be with us and bless us in all times.
Guide us through times of change.
Lead us on always towards better things for all,
As we join with you in ways for good.
These things we pray,

Amen.

Have a great and blessed week everyone,

Rev Grace
College Chaplain