June 4th News
Thank you, Tim
It is a daunting task to find adequate words to express the depth of gratitude I feel for Tim Connolly. He is among a small circle of people who have arrived in my life with wisdom and gifts at just the moment I have needed them. Thanks to Tim, a new bar of excellence has been set for chocolate chip cookies, and I will forever smile and think of Tim when I see someone wearing a Patagonia vest. Silly as these may seem, they comingle with the great gifts of soul and spirit to allow a glimpse or a taste of the wisdom within. Central to Tim’s warmth, kindness, integrity and compassion – and perhaps his greatest gift – is a deep capacity for listening.
To talk with Tim Connolly is to be heard. His genuine desire to understand a person or a situation is the foundation for every conversation. As said so succinctly and beautifully by the theologian Paul Tillich, “The first duty of love is to listen.” So perhaps the second duty of love is to act in accordance with what you have heard. In Tim I have seen what it means to listen to the will of the group and to put aside personal attachment or agenda in order to serve a community. He hears not only the words that we speak, but the raw material out of which we form our words – the yearnings, the fears, the joys. Tim listens with his whole self so that the entirety of ourselves feel welcome in the conversation. He shows us what love can look like through his listening.
Our school is blessed by the presence of elders, determined not by age, but by the ability to keep one foot in the material world and one in the world of soul and spirit. These elders, through deep listening of both worlds, teach us to weave a fabric of community that is imbued with strength, beauty and imagination. Tim is as deft a weaver as they come. For millennia elders were thought to be a valuable resource without whose guidance we could lose our way. Over the past months we have encountered many forks in the road and many detours. Through Tim’s guidance and wisdom, along with Larry Smith, Anne White, and the entire WSRF faculty, staff and board, we have not lost our way – we are finding our way.
Thank you, Tim, from the roots to the blossoms, for all that you have done, for all that you bring, for all that you are.
With an abundance of gratitude,
Elizabeth Allen for the Board of Trustees
School News
The Hill
It has been a long standing tradition at WSRF for the 8th grade to offer a gift to the students and the school that gave them so much over the years. You can find these gifts sprinkled all around our campus. There are benches built by students, ladder systems installed to help Ms. DeRudder reach the high places in her classroom, goal posts, hexagonal bee enclosures, and now The Hill.
The class of 2021 chose to raise up a sledding hill for the grades. There are always a group of kids trying to capture a bit of a thrill in the winter months sliding down what was a small bump on the playground. It wasn’t much, even the kindergarteners had a more thrilling lump to play on. Now, thanks to their efforts and the treasures of soil, equipment, and volunteerism, the school has a bonafide sledding hill with a jump for extra excitement!
Gratitude goes out to John Shine, our new friend, who brought load after load of dirt from his job site for free. We thank Eric Baumheier for bringing his skid steer and delivering even more loads. Eric taught the kids how to run the skid steer and build up the hill. We thank Max, and Divide Creek Builders, for donating soil from the massive piles next door at the polo fields. We also have gratitude for Michael Scher who ran over at a moment's notice to mark the sprinklers. Thank you Buildings and Grounds committee for approving our idea.
Most of all, thank you 8th grade for building a high quality playground space that will bring so much fun to the kids next winter!
Sincerely,
Ms. Mullally for the Class of 2021
End of Year Events
The end of the school year is always packed with events, and this year is no different! Here is a taste of what's happening at school as we wrap up the 2020-21 school year
