Every year it happens. My social media accounts are filled to brimming with back to school shots of kids heading off to their first day of classes. I can appreciate that it may be irksome to those without kids but I LOVE it. The pics are stylized and edited and selected for ultimate cuteness, sure. But it’s a snapshot in time of these precious ones my friends and family have produced. It’s a yearly reminder that they grow up so fast. I get to see which children have lost teeth, which have hit a growth spurt, which are looking more and more like either their mom or dad each year.

This photo montage is also a reminder too that even though the world around us may feel crazy, there are some things that don’t change. Summer ends and kids go back to school. There are new backpacks, new bright white (for a day) sneakers and all the anticipation that goes with new teachers and new classes. Inside those backpacks are brand new pens and freshly sharpened pencils and never used before markers and crayons. There will be books with bindings so new and tight you have to press down to keep them open and turn the pages with licked fingers to get them to separate. Or books passed down with names of other students listed that you quickly review to see who before you learned from them.

Today when the kids get home they will likely be sweaty (we are in the South) and exhausted from being “on” for so many hours in a row. And perhaps getting them to talk about their teachers and classes will be a long laborious process of unwelcomed interrogation. Or maybe it will just bubble out in a fast-talking stream that is hard to understand. In any case - it’s happening everywhere and it means that life is going on. And I take comfort in that. So please, keep posting those first day photos.

A lovely little blessing offered to students at Trinity Episcopal Church each Fall:

God of Wisdom, we give you thanks for schools and classrooms and for the teachers and students who fill them each and every day. We thank you for this new beginning and for new books and new ideas. We thank you for sharpened pencils, pointy crayons, and crisp blank pages that are just waiting to be filled. We thank you for the gift of making mistakes and then trying again. Help us to remember that asking questions is often as important a discovering the answers. Today we give thanks for these children and bless them with curiosity, understanding, and respect for all people.

Amen.