The next step on the journey

Philosophers and psychologists and dramatists have enjoyed breaking our lives down into neat phases or stages - each with a set of characteristics - and each with a major goal we need to accomplish before we can move on successfully.

Certainly when I look back at my life I can see 

• pre-school, at home mostly with my mother, 
• childhood, 
• adolescence, 
• searching for purpose and vocation in young adulthood, 
• maturity, as I focused on the paths to becoming the person I was created to be. (I think maturity started for me the day Suellen and I brought our first child home from the maternity hospital in Ashburton and I realised this tiny boy's life was in my hands!) 
• personal mastery (where I became a very good teacher), 
• contribution (where I learnt to lead other teachers, and learnt to build the sort of community I believed in).

I don't believe that my next stage is "second childishness and mere oblivion" as one of Shakespeare's more cynical characters would have it - but whatever it might be, I am at that stage and beginning to explore it.

I have been very moved by - and grateful for - the many very generous words from parents and teachers and students this week after I announced my need to move on from Garin College. I am really sad to be leaving your wonderfully talented and caring students, your very involved and talented teachers, and you: the most supportive and positive group of parents I have worked with. 

The positivity that characterises our school is something very special, maybe a consequence of the fact that we have been responsible together for creating a new school and have had the opportunity to create the sort of school we really want.

The blessing for me is that parents, students and staff have bought into a vision of a school created to live the values of Jesus: a community school based on love and acceptance, and growth. 

Together we have created and fostered a school that believes that God did, in fact, create each one of us - and that each one of us is therefore unique, with a purpose no-one else has, and gifted to fulfil that purpose (even if we sometimes struggle to recognise our many gifts).

Of course we all lose confidence in that at times, and allow the world to tell us that we are ordinary. But like a great parish, the Garin community remains positive and idealistic and connected, and draws each of us back to the birthright of each member of our God's creation: love, the fullness of life - and the right and responsibility to add our unique contribution to the development of this community, our wider community, and even the whole of creation. 

If each of us leaves our world a slightly better place, we will have fulfilled our purpose - and not one of us knows all the effect of our ripples. That is for God to plan and judge. We just need to acknowledge our right and duty to make the best ripples we can!

So, as I leave leadership at Garin College, I am not leaving our community. I still expect (and am expected) to contribute. I will continue adding to this blog (without the weekly reminder in the newsletter), but I am definitely moving past the need or passion to be a formal leader and hands-on builder. 

I have things I need to do for my own salvation - and so, my happiness. I don't intend to keep those secret and personal: they will be chronicled in these blogs for anyone who cares to read them.