Full Circle

According to Geometry, the circle is a unique, powerful and beautiful shape. It symbolizes unity, symmetry, completion, etc. Similarly, our commitment to Christian, classical education or enkuklios paideia (“education in a circle”) creates a unique, powerful and beautiful form for education which includes the following: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, astronomy, music and geometry. Its purposeful approach aims to cultivate wisdom and virtue, to elicit and develop true, good and beautiful affections in the hearts and minds of our students so they may become an “autodidact” (a self-motivated, lifelong learner). By maintaining this approach to educating the whole child, we are able, as G.K. Chesterton says, to “…pass the soul of our society from one generation to another.”

In the Bible, the word “Gilgal” represents both a geographic location (on the side of the Jordan River as found in Joshua 5) as well as a “…wheel or circle of sacred stones.” It is a place where the Lord required His people to create an “ebenezer” (a pile of stones to serve as a marker for remembrance) where they would return to reinforce their history with the next generation.

As modern educators and parents, we know how powerful learning can be when a theoretical concept is reinforced by a tangible example of that abstract concept in action. Jesus, our first and best teacher, knew we would also need particular places, and practices, to reinforce and remind us of the Truths of His Word in our everyday lives.

In this issue of the Messenger, we want to share some of the artifacts and evidence of the “full circle” growth of our students and the tremendous faithfulness of the Lord to SCS throughout this 2023-2024 academic year. In addition, we invite you to celebrate with us the myriad aspects of this time of year representing both a conclusion, and yet a commencement, for our graduating seniors as they prepare for a new season of life as emerging adults. I know that as you interact with their testimonies and the multitude of other representations of the life of our school found within these pages, you too will be motivated to praise the Lord for the unity, beauty and completion that He has produced among and within our community of learners this year!

Thanks Be to God for His True, Good and Beautiful plan for Stillwater Christian School and thank you for your continued prayers, support and encouragement as we celebrate the circular power of His personhood as stated in Revelation 22:13-14, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.”