Tabor Vision

Written by Paul Donovan

Christmas is a time of family and a time of faith.  As I sit to write my reflections for this newsletter, those two things - family and faith – are strong in my mind.  We all have different experiences of what it means to be a family and celebrations, like Christmas, remind us of what it means to us.  I grew up in a very close family, a family whose members loved each other and cared about what was happening in each others lives.  When I think about Loyola, the word family comes to mind very quickly.  I see a place where people love and care about each other.  What a great place to be, what a great place to work.

In my role as principal, I have the opportunity to see and be part of many lives; the lives of the students and their parents, the lives of the faculty and staff and of so many others that associate with Loyola.  For the most part, I see beautiful caring relationships and people who want the best for each other.  But there is another side to most families that can be much harder to deal with, a side we often like to hide and pretend doesn’t exist, a side that stems from our pride and selfishness, a side that hurts the people we love most. Sometimes that hurt can just be insensitivity to others when I’m lost in my own ego and sometimes it can be very deep, especially when a trust is broken.  As a family we are not immune to this pain and I’ve seen it in the lives of our students, parents and faculty and in my own life at Loyola.  I have been both hurt and the cause of pain to others.  So where do we go when we have hurt or been hurt by our family?  How can we cope with betrayal and dishonesty and selfishness and the whole list of vices that plagues our human condition?  I can run away and hide and so protect myself form being hurt and from my own guilt.  I can stop truly loving so that I no longer need to open myself to hurting or being hurt; become an island that neither touches nor is touched by others.