21st January 2023

I’ve attended many schools during my life, and all of them helpful to the gaining of wisdom, even if some of the lessons were of the painful kind. Like my first day at State School, when I was caned by the headmaster for running on the cement. Who could forget! Standing trembling in his office, the command to put out my hand, the thwack and sting, the stern dismissal, the humiliating tears, and the walk of shame back to class.

I remember too being enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks – which unfortunately seems to have so many subject areas! The sporting field was perhaps the best: getting out for golden duck in cricket, fumbling a dropkick near the try line, being unfairly penalized by some ignorant referee, starting an important game on the reserves bench, and a hundred other lessons that helped to knock the rough edges off my ego and pride.

But the best school into which I’ve ever been enrolled, is the School of Christ, with its superior teaching method. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” No complex diagrams of yokes on smart boards to copy down and memorize. No impossible agrarian building projects for homework. But lining up beside the Teacher – He on one side of the yoke, and the student on the other – in order to patiently learn the pace and value and meaning of life.

DM 21^st January 2023