In the Spirit
In our hardened tempers and quotidian frustrations, it is easy to dismiss the miracle of a season acclaimed for its liberal feeling and liberal giving. Nevertheless, this little community of ours has never failed to rise to the occasion and to reaffirm that people are worthy of our most humane hopes and ambitions.
Each year, we make the case for those in need. We speak on behalf of those who have fallen, who have misstepped or been clobbered by circumstance, succumbed to poverty or tragedy or whose discouragement can be mitigated by a kind word or a show of appreciation. The Ridgeview family has shown itself more than willing to give not just money, but time, labor, thought, prayer, talent, sentiment, and matériel.
If ever there were reason to expect that this magnanimity might be diminished, the past two years could understandably have been expected to cool people’s capacity and enthusiasm for charity, but it has proven rather the opposite: the harder the times, the more that has been given. Whether they were dropping off used uniforms they might have resold, picking up extra groceries for a food drive, donating money for a faculty Christmas party, volunteering to chaperone a trip, helping us to discreetly provide help to families in need, toys for children, or making ends meet for a classroom party, Ridgeview’s parents, faculty, staff, students, and board members have shown that they live by the words they study and profess.
In C.S. Lewis’ Four Loves, he wittily opens his chapter on charity by noting that someone once replied, “No, it isn’t,” to the title of William Blake’s poem “Love is Enough.” He continued by explaining that charity is not a natural love on par with affection, friendship, and eros. “The natural loves,” writes Lewis, “are not self-sufficient.” Put another way, it is right and good that we should love our children, our friends, and our spouses, but without a love that emulates something higher than human nature, it is rarely clear that these loves can be as pure or as enduring as they might be. Charity, in this view, is not merely aid, tolerance, or compassion, but a “self-giving love.” We give ourselves, and in order for us to meet the criteria, we must be free to choose. Like virtue, charity is impossible without choice, deliberation, and intent. Accident, coercion, obligation, incentivization, and compulsion all destroy the possibility of charity.
It is, then, more commendable by far that we should each of us have been drawn to this little community out of some common interest that may remain unarticulated or only vaguely known, and to have contributed to it in ways great and small without resort to any of these purported shortcuts, and then to have taken care of one another by freely giving of ourselves.
The comically hypocritical Mr. Pecksniff in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit quips, “Charity and Mercy. Not unholy names, I hope?” Indeed, at Ridgeview, not at all, and what hope that brings! Our nerves may be frayed by endless political imbroglios and pandemic concerns, but there is hope to be had in seeing this community continue to breathe fresh life into the spirit of this tremendous season.
Thank you to all who have given. You are legion and are the betterment of us all. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and best wishes for a bright, new year!
D. Anderson
Headmaster
