The Sabbath. Oliver Sacks has written a wonderfully, tight essay about the role this day played throughout his life - the restfulness of it, the pause of it, the disconnect from work and routine to focus on the connection of faith and family. It’s a powerful reminder the author tucks into the end of his slim volume of essays titled Gratitude. That essay and a conversation with Gregor about what we do and don’t share about individual beliefs have me musing late in the week about faith and schools.

I appreciate the seamless flow of a well-executed play, celebrate the flat-out effort of a starter playing an entire game, marvel at acrobatic dunks, but essentially know nothing about the game. I have seen the miracle shot launched from half court at Proctor– DJ Rankin’s buzzer beater earlier in the season. And grit? All I have to do is think back to the girls’ win at KUA during the madness of the March playoffs.

This week’s March 30^th editorial by Frank Bruni, College Admissions Shocker! is a humorous poke at the ridiculously competitive landscape of some of the top colleges in the country. The author of the editorial, and the best selling book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, takes on the foolishness of college admissions rate in a delightfully provocative way. And it has got me thinking on the eve of our own Revisit Day about our own school, our own process, and what the difference is between the landscapes of independent secondary schools and colleges.

7:30 a.m. Day three of Project Period and it is raining with a light skim of snow on campus. A freezing rain advisory issued by the Weather Channel is in effect until 9:00 a.m. The lights are on in the Community House where Patty Pond coordinates, supports, and cheers on the various groups as they come and go on campus. Soap Making, Conquering Childhood Cancer with St. Baldrick’s Foundation Event, Backcountry Medicine and Leadership, Maple Sugaring, The Lakota Way, Mono Prints…and so many more. Why do we do this?

Attitude of Gratitude. I first heard this phrase years ago from Jen Fletcher as she talked about students who thrive at Proctor, students we want at Proctor. It’s applicable to adults as well as student: the attitude of gratitude. We all need to cultivate it, need to preserve it, need to see it as an essential element of inner balance. There are books written about this sort of thing, naturally, and the best one I have seen recently is Oliver Sacks’ slim collection of final essays published as Gratitude. It is a powerful, forty-five pages reminder.

Every year one spine-tingling moment rises above others. We all have our Proctor highlight reels – Hays speeches, Pete Talks, buzzer beaters in basketball, robotics presentations, social entrepreneurship pitches, a painting in Slocumb – moments that prickle the forearms and back of the neck. Ghostly moments, spiritual moments, what-just-happened moments. Last Sunday’s choral performances certainly gave me a new one.

This week’s reflection comes partially from watching Southwest gate A19 turnaround in Chicago, partially from having dinner with Phil McNichols the former head coach of the U.S. Men’s Ski Team, and partially it comes from A Harvard Business Review article by Michael Porter called What is Strategy? Collectively it made me think about who we are, what we do, and what’s in our wheelhouse?

I have spent this week in Texas – Austin, Houston, and Dallas. When skipping from one city to the next, meeting different Proctor families to talk about the school and capital campaign initiatives, time breaks down into blocks. And then there are the spaces in between when I pull out my iPhone to fill the small moments with small news: political updates, emails, sports scores, text messages. This week I have looked to change the habits of these micro moments with a copy The Best American Short Stories of 2015. Something more than a news feed, the collection has proved useful.