Principal's Message T4 W6 2022

Birthdays

So, this week is my mum’s birthday. It is also Martin Luther’s birthday, although he shuffled off this mortal coil 500 years ago, my mum is still fighting fit.

I think birthdays are great. I am not a great gift giver, not because I am stingy, quite the opposite I love to be generous, but because I am hopeless at remembering birthdays until it is too late to organise a present.

‘Mmm, November 10, why does that ring a bell? Oh! Dang! Mum’s birthday.’ I suspect because I have to be future focused and strategic in my work life I kind of like to keep my personal life in the moment, or I have learned to over the years. Maybe my brain is just full.

In any event a birthday is a time of celebration, another lap around the sun for those of us who are still here, the honouring of a life of achievement for those of us who have moved on. Whether a great reformer like Luther in the 1500’s or a loved grandparent in the 2000’s, we remember them and their contributions on their birthdays.

Of course, at school birthdays are a big deal. One of the things that families learn really quickly upon starting Prep is the birthday party scene. It flows well into Primary School and follows on into Secondary School, usually culminating with the big 18th with all your school mates either in Year 12 or there abouts shortly after. We come together to celebrate, to share, to give.

So, as I organise another bunch of flowers to be delivered to my mum in Dubbo, and consider the life and works of Martin Luther, who shares the same birthday, my mind wanders of course to the big one that is coming up soon once again.

This time of year is the launch of the Christmas season in shops. Decorations are being hung, merchandise and advertising are starting to bombard us, sooner than we’d like probably.

Here at Faith we are starting to hang our Christmas stuff up already too. Because we close in early December for the year, we miss out on the build up, on much of the celebration.

So now, in birthday season we start to think about Jesus birthday, to prepare ourselves to celebrate, to share, to give. Because He did.

Shane Altmann

Principal