On Thursday, May 20, the Redeemer community gathered for the first time after more than a year of holding events virtually. Logic and Rhetoric School students and their guests appreciated being together outside at Brix and Columns Vineyards. In addition to being able to eat and socialize, those in attendance enjoyed the musical, dramatic and speaking talents of the 6th - 9th graders. The evening began with a welcome from Head of School, Ron Hoch, and then alternated between musical performances and LEAP Presentations. In addition, the 9th Grade Drama Club took the stage to premiere their rendition of The Nose. Mr. Hoch closed out the evening with his annual commencement remarks.
Music
6th Grade Handbells
Upbeat, by Kathleen Wissinger
Ring Praise, O My Soul, by Margaret Tucker
7th Grade Handbells
Matinata, by Kathleen Wissinger
Wellerman, trad. New Zealand Sea Shanty c.1860 /arr. Wissinger
8th Grade Handbells
In the Hall of the Mountain King, by Edvard Grieg/arr. Wissinger
Wind in Our Sails, by Kathleen Wissinger
feat. Addison Hutton (belltree) and Walter Kirkwood (singing)
9th Grade Music
Hands, by Mary Ellen Childs
The Redeemer Choir
Somlandela / Singabahambayo, African hymn and folk song
Song of Peace: A Partner Song with “Dona Nobis Pacem”
addt’l words & music by Mary Donnelly, arr. by George L.O. Strid
Give Us Hope, by Jim Papoulis, arr. by Francisco J. Nunez
LEAP Presentations
Each year, we challenge our 8th graders to reflect on their time at Redeemer as they prepare to advance out of the Logic School. They spend much of their final semester working on these LEAP Presentations — writing, presenting, rewriting, practicing and editing some more. Each student has picked a topic of personal interest and importance to him/her and has considered how their fascination in the subject has been nurtured at Redeemer. Our goal with these presentations is to glorify God through students’ expressions of knowledge in a field in which they are gifted. Below you’ll find the title of each of the 8th graders’ lectures.
[In order of appearance]
Emelia Ritchie
Symbiosis in a Learning Environment
Jon Bolander
A Revolutionary Method
Charles Loucks
An Introduction to Infinity
Addison Hutton
The Great School Debate
Elijah Lorson
Bernoulli’s Principle
Madison Pascarella
Oaks of Righteousness
Joy Li
Messages in Music
Isabel Matter
The Importance of Art
Jude Lookabill
The Journey Toward Confident Speaking
Walter Kirkwood
Exploring Space With An In-Depth View
Macy Waid
Greek Themes in Modern Culture
Jackson Ladner
Commencement Speech, Winston Churchill
Joshua Uribe
The Fibonacci Sequence
9th Grade Theater
The Nose
Adapted from a short story by Nikolai Gogol, the father of surrealism. The play “contains much that is highly implausible, but you must judge this for yourself.”
Closing Remarks
[Transcript of the speech given by Head of School, Ron Hoch]
At this time it is my honor to address the 8th grade students directly. But before I do that, I’d like to share a word that I feel describes each of these students well. I don’t do this to pigeon-hole them, or to suggest in any way that this is the sum total of their character. Far from it. But, having had the joy of teaching these students, I want to celebrate some of their best traits and give you a better sense for this wonderful group of people.
Jonathan Bolader: Clever
Addison Hutton: Compassionate
Walter Kirkwood: Resilient
Jackson Ladner: Earnest
Joy Li: Kind
Jude Lookabill: Caring
Elijah Lorson: Determined
Charlie Loucks: Resolute
Izzy Matter: Friend
Madison Pascarella: Creative
Emme Ritchie: Inquisitive
Joshua Uribe: Faithful
Macy Waid: Hard-working
To our beloved 8th grade class of 2021: for some of you this moment indicates that your time at Redeemer is drawing to a close. For others of you this moment marks a transition from Redeemer’s Logic School into the Rhetoric School. For all of you this is the start of a new chapter in life, and as such it is a great opportunity to reflect on what you’ve learned in an effort to grow and prepare for what lies ahead.
As I’m sure you know, our motto at Redeemer is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (Veritas, Bonitas, and Pulchritudo in Latin). This is more than a marketing tool or a catchy phrase. These are the virtues that we sought to put in front of you each and every day with the hope that you would more readily see, better understand, and more earnestly love them. You studied truth, goodness, and beauty in class as discrete subjects in their own right. You examined them as they appeared in other subjects — as in literature, art, and science, for example. What’s more, your teachers strove to live out these virtues in the way that they taught, and in the relationships they nurtured with you and your peers.
Day by day in ways subtle and overt you have been shaped by this steady interaction with truth, goodness, and beauty. Whether you realize it or not, this will have a lasting impact on your life — on the views you hold, the way you think, and how you relate to others. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, decades from now, the education that you’ve received at Redeemer will cause you to take a particular stance in a controversy that you never recognized as a controversy at all. Such is the innate condition of your beliefs, convictions, and patterns of thought, which stem from the time that you spent with truth, goodness, and beauty.
Now, I don’t mean to imply that your views are all fully formed or that the way you think now will be the way that you think in the future. Not at all. You are not a finished product. There is a lifetime of learning and growth ahead of you. In fact, that’s the very point. You’ve had a wonderful start here at Redeemer so far, but it is only the beginning. I sincerely hope that you will continue to sit with and learn from the virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty throughout your lives.
Concerning TRUTH specifically, I pray that you would never stop seeking it; that you would always be hungry to know it more clearly and more fully. That you would defend the truth from those who wish to distort — or outright ignore it — for the sake of their own interests. And that, in all things, you would promote truth in a way that is generous, loving, and winsome so that others may come to know and love it, too.
Concerning GOODNESS, I pray that you would celebrate the good that is in the world while shunning all that is wicked and evil. That you would encourage others to do good by the example that you set in word and deed. That you would be good at what you do, and good in what you do.
Concerning BEAUTY, I pray that your eyes would be open to see beauty everywhere you go — in a sunrise over the mountains, in the laughter of a child, in the eyes of a loved one, in the swirling patterns of a seashell; in art, music, math, literature, science, and more. That as you see this beauty you would absorb it deep into your soul, finding joy in it’s presence just as the creator finds joy in bringing it into existence. And that you would embody beauty. I do not mean that I wish you to be beautiful in the cheap, visceral way that is common on the pages and feeds of social media influencers, or in other pop culture outlets. But that you would embody beauty in its realest and deepest sense. The kind of beauty that sparks joy and delight. The kind of beauty that seems to cause time to stand still, and that makes us aware — even if just for a moment — that we have glimpsed the transcendent and eternal. The kind of beauty that reflects the creator in ways that words cannot articulate. That is the kind of beauty that I hope is personified in and through you.
At times we may be tempted to say that the world today is short on virtue; lacking in truth, goodness, and beauty. But I don’t think that’s quite right. Truth, goodness, and beauty are all around us if we have eyes to see. Rather it seems that we are short on people who know, love, and embody these virtues. My prayer — our prayer — is that you would stand in the gap. That you would be those who know, love, and embody the virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty. And that in doing so you would add to the ways that these virtues are manifest in our world, to the glory of God.
So carry the Redeemer motto — truth, goodness, beauty — with you wherever you go and whatever you do. As you do so, may you be a light in the dark places, a beacon of hope to the hopeless, and a source of peace for a weary world. Thank you.