Words is the theme of the latest edition of Mercersburg magazine, which you should be receiving in your mailboxes momentarily. As I was reviewing the proofs before printing, it struck me that we are at that point in the year where we use a word that pops up and proliferates at this time of year only: convocation.
It’s on old word, convocation, coming to us from the verb, convoke, partly from Latin, then Middle French in the 14-15th centuries. It’s a word that today carries a special connotation – an event of importance and celebration -- but at its root, convocation means a “calling together.” On September 7th Mercersburg gathers the whole student body and the entire faculty in our ceremony of Convocation, our official calling together for the start of a new school year.
I am particularly fond of both the “calling” and the “togetherness” aspects of our Convocation. Faculty, in particular, know what it means to be called, for teaching is very much a response to a deep and personal calling. One really cannot exist as an effective teacher for any length of time without a true calling, for it is by and through this calling that we find our respective sources of creativity, patience, inspiration, and, at times, stamina. A calling to teach is truly a form of love that doesn’t get enough exposure, let alone validation.
Students are called also, though I think the real power of their call may not be so much in the call itself, but in the coming together as a collective group of talented students and adults in community with one another. The surfeit of information one can access on the internet can give the impression that all we need to learn and retain can be easily summoned by the algorithms of Google. But … when a student has an electric connection with an amazing faculty member at Mercersburg in the classroom, on the field, or in the rehearsal hall or studio, such superficiality dies, and a new “gold standard” emerges. A student calling is a convocation-as-chemical-reaction, and, as such, a resultant treasure that has no price or substitute. It’s the reason we’re all here.
So, for the 118th time at Convocation, we celebrate our calling together to make Mercersburg happen once again, as only Mercersburg can … with full hearts and loud swelling cheers.