Rev. McKinley L. Sims, M.Div.

(*written originally in May 2011)

A little more than a year ago today, I walked across the gorgeous campus of the College of William & Mary with my closest friends. It was easily one of the greatest days of my life, but it belayed a dark underlining of fear and doubt. Amidst the gleeful shouts and laughs, there were tears of nostalgia already brimming at the eyes of the Class of 2010. We had no way of knowing whether or not our “glory days” were behind us. Would life ever be that good again? Was it all going downhill? Would we ever feel as connected to another situation as we did to our friends in that place?

A year later, life is clipping along at a furious pace, with only 6 weeks left in our school year. It’s not all downhill, as far as life goes; in fact, it’s quite an uphill type-of-thing. It’s an uphill battle everyday, fighting against enemies that don’t discriminate, don’t fight fair and take no prisoners. Poverty, intolerance, and apathy in communities make our job infinitely harder. Kids feel like they need to steal things from each other, looking for a quick fix to their troubles. They look at one another differently because of twisted ideas that others forced into their heads. They shut down when faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

Life is going, it’s uphill, and the connection? As my friend Katherine once wrote, we are “bound” to our students. We have entered into a covenant with them, which can’t be broken. If you ever meet a Hebrew scholar, ask them about the word berit. It’s the word used to describe the relationship between God and the Israelites. People translate it as “contract” or “covenant,” but those two words mean different things. A contract is something that ends, gets completed, and gets reneged. It’s a business thing.

A covenant, on the other hand, is like a rainbow. Judeo-Christian tradition tells that God used a rainbow as His sign of a covenant with the earth. It was His promise and His word to the people, “I am yours, and you are mine. We are bound.”

A rainbow- you don’t know where it starts or where it ends- it’s just there. It’s present, binding, and real. You couldn’t break a covenant even if you wanted to, because it is not a contract. It’s a connection.

People have this connection, in families, at colleges, in 5th grade classrooms. I have this connection, with both an amazing group of twenty-somethings who are spread out across the world, and with an amazing group of 10 year-olds who are from rough neighborhoods in Connecticut. To me, this connection is a sign that life will always be just as good as it was on my Graduation Day, with only the people around me changing shapes and faces. They stay the same inside my head and my heart. They’re bound to me, and I to them.