By Leigh Anne Armstrong
Back to School Litany
One: God our Teacher, hopes run high at the beginning of a new school year—
All: hopes for learning good lessons, making good friends, achieving good things.
One: God our Peace, anxieties run high at the beginning of a new school year—
All: anxieties about not measuring up, not fitting in, not being safe.
One: God our Prompter, opportunities run high at the beginning of a new school year—
All: opportunities to learn, to serve, to become.
One: God our Maker, at the beginning of a new school year—
All: make us curious, make us caring, make us courageous. Amen.
Pastoral Blessing for Students, Teachers, and Staff
Spirit of newness and renewal—
here at the doorstep of another school year, come alongside those who sit in desks and on circles,
those who stand at smartboards and keyboards and goal lines,
those who sit in reader’s rockers and serve in lunch lines and greet from front offices and shine hallway floors and drive yellow buses,
those who work their magic on muscles and mouths and fingers and eyes and ears in therapy,
those who provide a safe place to fall apart and come back together.
Come alongside those who tremble with excitement, for whom school has always been a delight, learning a treasure.
Come alongside those who tremble with misgiving or fear or dread,
for whom school may have sometimes represented striving and failing,
communication without community,
the worst human instincts revealed by the most trying of times.
Come alongside with fresh chances, new ideas, renewed hope, enlivened spirit, daybreak vision—
so that in all things there is the hope that comes with newness.
May this newness be the key to wonder, for all, in this newborn school year.
In the name of the one who makes all things new, Amen.