2025 May Letter from our Priest
Dear friends,
May is the traditional season for exams to start (I can sense the shiver going down your spine at the word ‘exams’!). Nowadays our youngsters become used to regular assessments throughout their school careers but when approaching GCSEs or the many other ‘official’ exams young people face there remains still a seriousness weight, and an awareness of what they mean – they have the power to open a doorway to a particular opportunity or a steer instead onto a different pathway.
We as a society are getting better at not seeing a certain set of exams and their grades as the ‘be-all’ of life, but we can’t deny they are important still to a degree. I was often heard in my teenage parent days saying ‘there are so many different ways of being clever’ to my children as they panicked or got frustrated, and I really meant it. It is not until we are older we realise there is cleverness in so many different ways - in design for instance (in creating industries such as fashion, food, inventing), in problem solving (engineering, in teaching, computing, law), in patience (at a pre-school with the really young, in the caring environment, in the arts such as sculpting)… these can be accessed thankfully in many different ways nowadays… life experience, commitment and demonstrations of skills carry a lot of weight (university is not the only way).
But wherever we end up, the majority of us will still find ourselves sitting in that hall at 16 or 18 years of age, 2 metres apart from our comrades, sat in silence with our see-through pencil case and only the ticking clock as background noise. (Oh, how difficult that sitting still was. For some friends it was the lack of discussion around our exam that was hard, and for others it was just the alien environment we found ourselves in – panic set in).
So, this month we think of our youngsters… we offer perhaps a little more patience than we might normally… we might make ourselves more available as a listening ear or an excursion to distract for a moment. We may find ourselves committing to pray for them (I heartily recommend this and do ask them for a timetable if you know them well enough, so you can pray on specific days at certain times). Perhaps you know a young person (in your family, or a neighbour). How can you support them? What could you say or do that might lift the spirits? A smile? A mysterious cupcake on the doormat at the end of a school day? A revision partner? Words of encouragement? Arms to embrace when things don’t seem to have gone well or arms to lift in celebration at the end of them? Have a think. We live in community… we are there for one another. These young people are our future and need our investment.
And to the young people who have a faith – Philippians 4.13 – ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’. God is with you in this – let him guide you in your revision, help keep you focussed and calm you on the day…
Suzie