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Chapel Talk: The Earth and All Stars Window
Enjoy the latest Lower School Chapel Talk, given by A Form Student Hayes, on the meaning he sees in the new Abraham window in the Little Sanctuary, or as he calls it, the "Earth and All Stars" window.
"Hello my name is Hayes and I am in Form A. Before I start my chapel talk I want everybody here to turn and look at this stained glass window for just a sec. If you can't see the window itself, there should be a printed image of it near where you are sitting.
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"Hello my name is Hayes and I am in Form A. Before I start my chapel talk I want everybody here to turn and look at this stained glass window for just a sec. If you can't see the window itself, there should be a printed image of it near where you are sitting.
When I look at this stained glass window I see wonderful things. There are a million stars, a million grains of sand and so many things that we rarely think about. And there are probably way more things that we don’t know about. Isn’t that amazing! It is important to take time to think about how things came to be and the way these things work.
The window reminds me that we are not alone. God is with us and he has made everything with intention and reason. Take my favorite food, sushi, for example. My favorite rolls are spicy tuna rolls. In the spicy tuna roll that I have, there is a piece of avocado, a piece of tuna, some seaweed, some rice, and some sauce. Before being in my sushi roll the tuna was probably prepared by a chef, and before that it was probably riding in a truck, and before that it was caught by a fisherman, and way before that it took its first breath, or whatever a fish does. Isn't it crazy that that one fish, that one special fish ended up in my mouth. INSANE!
It’s equally crazy that we are on earth, the best planet, (probably) in the universe. We ended up here for a reason and that reason matters. When Reverend Chadwick asked me to do a chapel talk, I immediately decided that I wanted this opportunity. Today I will be talking about the Abraham window, or as I like to call it the “Earth and All Stars” window. The Earth and All Stars hymn talks about how God has created the earth and all stars, and the loud rushing planets, and basically, everything amazing surrounding us. The hymn alludes to the psalms we just heard which invite creation itself to praise God: “Praise the Lord from the earth,/ you sea-monsters and all deeps;/ fire and hail, snow and fog,/ tempestuous wind,...” (Psalm 148: 708) and “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things” (Psalm 98:1) Both the hymn and the psalms that inspired it encourage us to consider the intention that is put into each tiny thing. There is a perfect balance of beauty and uniqueness. Applying these principles to the way you act in daily life, saying things, creating things, and being must have a great amount of intention. DONT RUSH.. Intention is key in such a large world.
Some people see different things. This is what I see in the window.
The window’s main idea is that Abraham is promised that his descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky and as many as the grains of sand in the desert. But when I look at it, I see the big world around us. In the window, there are three figures, abstract” figures.” While the artist had in mind figures from science and the Bible, to me, "these figures represent the people. For me, the fact that they have no facial expressions is really important. Just like the now and forever window that is in the cathedral, it is not about us as individual people, it is about the things around us that we have created, and that we have seen, and that we have experienced, that define who we are.
From far away, earth might seem like a tiny speck of a planet, but when we zoom in, and see the complicated life, we start to think about how amazing our planet is, not by sheer looks, but by the complexity and advancement that we as a people have made, with the intention and creativity of God. So, picture people as their own galaxy/ planet. We can zoom out to look at the big picture and see the story of each and every human being, and that's pretty great. Slowing down to notice the world around us and to see people in new ways reminds us that we are all part of the mystery of creation. We are connected to the earth, the stars, and to each other. In our divided world, when we help each other and share resources, we remind people that they are not alone. Rejoicing in those gifts we’ve been given, we can sing together to God, “He has done marvelous things! I, too, will praise him with a new song!”
Located in Washington D.C., St. Albans School is a private, all boys day and boarding school. For more than a century, St. Albans has offered a distinctive educational experience for young men in grades 4 through 12. While our students reach exceptional academic goals and exhibit first-rate athletic and artistic achievements, as an Episcopal school we place equal emphasis upon moral and spiritual education.