2020 and Looking Ahead
At year’s end, it’s tempting to try to fill a blog with musings intended to encapsulate the previous 12 months, to wrap up the year with a tidy statement of what was, and what it all meant. But how to do that at the end of 2020? Who would dare try to have the final word on a year marked by volumes of economic and political instability, by the surfacing of so much longstanding racial pain and inequity, and by a pandemic that claimed the lives of more than 300,000 of our family, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens? In a year characterized by inconvenience and fatigue, by suffering and tragedy, perhaps it’s best to turn the page and look toward 2021.
But before we move on, I wonder if there isn’t something we should notice, a lesson that will fortify us for whatever the New Year may bring. I have a friend who directs a nonprofit organization that does wonderful work, but has always had to hustle to find the funding that would allow them to deliver on their mission. These are understandably uncertain times for his organization, and I asked him how it was going to make it through. His answer was simple: “We’ll just need those who have given to give more.”
I believe that Browning is still delivering on its mission—is “making it through,” as it were—because of this central truth: Those who have always given have found a way to give more. I don’t mean this simply in material terms, though the philanthropic generosity of our community over the past year has been unprecedented. I mean it also in the emotional gifts that we have given one another throughout this pandemic period.
“All members have found ways to give more, and that these emotional gifts have not only sustained us personally, but have also reaffirmed the notion that at our school, ‘community’ isn’t simply a shibboleth that we mouth. ”
Our students are in a school environment so unlike the one that they’re used to, and the one they prefer, as they go without so much of the singing, sports, casual encounters, and lunchtime revelry that mark a typical school day—and yet they continue to create meaning, both for themselves and others, by reminding us all of the joy and possibility that comes from interpersonal connection, from being present for one another, under constrained or even distanced conditions. Our families have had to negotiate health compacts and screening apps, at-home learning and shifting schedules, Canvas and SeeSaw and online lunch orders, all of which can tax the indulgence of even the gentlest soul—and yet they continue to shoulder past frustration and grant our school the trust and patience it needs to learn and grow in its capacity to serve boys in a fraught time. Our faculty and staff have had to redesign lessons, manage online spaces, adopt new learning platforms, and stave off both anxiety and weariness—and yet they continue to show up (literally and figuratively) not simply out of professional duty, but because of a commitment rooted in deep, abiding care for our boys and for each other.
We should not deny the challenges and disappointments that have attended this period, and which are often felt in disproportionate terms, depending upon who we are and where we stand. And we cannot wish away the difficulties that remain and which may still come. But it is neither naive nor complacent to mark the fact that in this time of unbidden challenge, all members of Browning have found ways to give more, and that these emotional gifts have not only sustained us personally, but have also reaffirmed the notion that at our school, “community” isn’t simply a shibboleth that we mouth. It is, instead, something that we have found a way to continue to live, together, through creativity, generosity, flexibility, and forgiveness.
We look to the New Year in the spirit of hope—for new vaccines and greater health, for fewer sacrifices and reduced suffering, for less worry and more joy. And perhaps we can also approach January with a resolute belief that, whatever may come, Browning has the stuff within it—the people who give, and give some more, out of care for each other—that will make 2021 a year to be remembered, for all the right reasons.