Back to School
/by Rev. Eric Folkerth
It’s become a yearly tradition on social media: The “first day of school” pictures. I’m sure you saw it on Monday as well. You opened up your computer and saw various pictures of kids on their “first day” of the new year.
Some won’t start for a few weeks yet, but this was the week I saw the obligatory “first day” pics in my feed. However, none of us —parents, students, teachers— have ever experienced a first day like this one. The pics told the story of the difference...
Some kids with backpacks, standing up for that obligatory first-day picture (either smiling broadly, or grudgingly...). Other first-day pics are at a bedroom desk, or kitchen table, as kids prepare for virtual learning.
Covid has made these past few weeks of school-decisions like none other. Gone are the carefree days of just wondering which backpack to buy, or what pencils to choose. Now, the decisions feel much more real and life-changing.
So, I pray for parents, teachers, and kids. I pray for the parents who fear they’ve made the “wrong” choice. Parents fear this every day, but again, it has an extra layer of worry mixed in this Fall.
To our parents: I know you worry about your choices. However, given how much I have seen people wrestling with the choices, or how I have heard first-hand from you church parents about your choices, my strong hunch is that (as with all parenting) you made the right choice for your kid, no matter how it may feel.
To our kids: However you feel about restarting school, I invite you imagine how this will feel years from now. We will get through this terrible time, and years from now, you and all your friends will have an incredible story to tell of “the COVID year.”
The older you get, the more the memory of whatever frustration you feel today will fade. Most of the stories old people tell each other go like this “Remember when....that crazy thing happened?!”
This year will be like that for you, for the rest of your life.
And you are going to be OK.
To the teachers: God bless you for your commitment to kids. We’ve made you into front-line workers in this crisis, please continue to help us understand how we can advocate for your safety.
For those of us at Kessler, we’re in prayer for the Kessler School as they start back this week. They’ve implemented stringent protocols that will hopefully keep everyone safe.
Of course, this has also changed what we’re doing around the church, as we celebrate “Back To School.”
We couldn’t have a “Blessing of the Backpacks” this year, but we did hand deliver backpack tags to kids last week.
We couldn’t invite kids to help lead worship in the sanctuary, but we did have several kids that helped out with worship last Sunday, via Zoom.
“Back To School” has become one more marker in what I recently heard called “our new abnormal.” We will ALL get through this, and talk about it like folks talk about having climbed a mountain or run a marathon. And nothing has changed about God’s daily presences with us, throughout.
God bless you all — parents, students, teachers— as we journey one more step through this truly confusing and challenging year.