Summer School

Rock and Sand Beach Art, Covert, MI

School is out for the summer.  Most teacher-types and a great number of student-types are breathing a sigh of relief.  Text books are put away and alarm clocks are reset.  The tests are over and the grades are in.  What has been done, has been done.  What has not been done has not been done.  And in the wisdom of the Beatles, we can "let it be." Summer goals include spending time on the beach, riding bikes and family cook-outs.  It is time for a new perspective.  It is time to take time and form hearts in the sand.

Education in the formal sense may have stopped, but summer is a time for questions, the real root of education.  Why are we here?  Who do we serve?  Where did we come from and where are we going?  What brings us joy?  Who do we love?  Summer gives us time to ponder the big questions that form us and ground us.  It is also a time that affords us to think of the little questions that grow us.  What was that bird?  Who made the sand art?  What are those seagulls thinking?  Why are some of my flowers thriving and others barely living?  Some of the questions may have answers found in books, but many of them are found in the living and observing of everyday life.  Some questions may have no answers, but stay with us nonetheless in that ongoing quest for understanding.  I would like to believe that knowledge comes from taking the time to form questions.  And wisdom comes from letting the questions stand, when there are no answers. 

I wish for all of you, good questions and a few answers along the way this summer of 2012.