Over the years I have been directing my children like a conductor to get their morning routines functioning well enough so that we can get out of the house and off to school with everything they need for a great day. Some days this is an overwhelming task. But sometime this year it happened – my children, now 15 and 12, began waiting for me to get out of the house. This was great news until I realised the roles had changed. The practice had worked, and now they were conducting me.
I was being addressed by my children living out their values.
At the 2024 ASA Conference, we listened to students (and staff) from Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School on the values of human dignity and reconciliation. Senior Students explained how they created intentional space in their chapel, in their leadership, in their development of culture in the younger years, to attend to the multi faith quality of their Anglican School with curiosity, care and inclusion. It was a powerful testimony of the transformative nature of faith and values within Anglican Schools, especially in a fractured Anglican Communion.
Everyday we are being addressed by students living out of their values.
Working with children and young people who are rapidly becoming the bearers of our Anglican Identity is beautiful and profound work. It is also dangerous, for it becomes a test of our authenticity. The precedent of a young person speaking into the religious status quo has been set within our most central biblical story; A young woman says ‘yes’ to God and in her value-laden response, the child ‘Emmanuel’ restores the dignity of humanity. Our students are living into this story.
Since October 2023, tens of thousands of children and young people and families have been killed in Gaza. Systematic injustice and discrimination has fostered what many are calling genocide. Our students watch with Insta and TikTok immediacy. They watch on screens and they watch us and what we do with our values.
As our Anglican Schools Australia Conference came to a close on the 3rd of August, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, had already sent an open letter to the world’s governments welcoming the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This letter has, among other things, drawn our attention to the gospel imperative of responding to human need. The leader of the global Anglican Communion has spoken with clarity about the justice, hope, and compassion of Jesus into the world today. He wrote:
the State of Israel has been “denying the Palestinian people dignity, freedom and hope” – and that ending its occupation of Palestinian territory is “a legal and moral necessity”.[1]
Filmmaker Rolla Selbak has made a powerful Instagram reel bearing witness to Palestinian dignity. It is called Tell Them We Did Not Live Silent Free world: TELL THEM WE DID NOT LIVE SILENT (youtube.com) and it records Palestinian humanity resisting the inhumanity of state sponsored bombs and starvation. The film bears witness to children and young people living with bold hope.
Everyday we are being addressed by children living out of their values.
Selbak’s poetic reel and Justin Welby’s letter are the impetus for a creative response from some of our smallest Anglican Schools. Clarence Valley Anglican School and Emmanuel Anglican College are inviting Australian Anglican Schools to come together with informed and compassionate responses that speak something of our Anglican Values on the theme of Humanity = Dignity. They seem a tiny thing, but these creative responses are also the story of:
● a shepherd boy with a sling and five smooth stones staring down a giant
● a boy with five loaves and two fish amongst a multitude of need
● an innocent man left by the side of the road, half dead, saved by someone crossing a religious divide
● the young women of Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar
● the amazing and courageous students within our Anglican communities
● my own children as they challenge me to be who I say I am
We are inviting the Anglican Schools of Australia to come alongside other Anglican students and staff to make a video (an insta reel) of solidarity with the children and young people of Gaza. The video will be held together by the words of Rolla Selbak’s poem; “Tell them we did not live Silent” and authored under our name – Anglican Schools.
We are also offering some Prayer Space Resources around this issue. These are of use within a senior school or parish context. If these projects sound like something your amazing students would like to be engaged in, please follow the link to;
● A video letter for students to engage on the film project Project “We Did Not Live Silent’.mov – Google Drive
● Project Instructions: “We Did Not Live Silent” Project Instructions.pdf – Google Drive
● Resources for hosting Prayer Spaces: Humanity = Dignity Gaza Prayer Spaces.pdf – Google Drive
The intention of these creative actions are to let the children of Gaza know that;
● we see them, and we care,
● their dignity reaches across oceans,
● their lives are inspiring us to live, but not live silent
● they are not alone,
● they are witnesses to the image of God in each other.
Within these creative actions our young people are being empowered to find expressions for their Anglican Identity, or their faith, in real ways – ways that speak life to those in need with integrity, hope, and compassion, following in the footsteps of Jesus. We hope you can come alongside us on this journey.
Peace and every good
The Reverend Nic Hagon – Clarence Valley Anglican School
The Reverend Richard Browning – Emmanuel Anglican College
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