Our Stories
In the rich and fascinating novel, The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco writes that “to survive, you must tell stories.”
Sounds overblown. To survive (really), we need to eat right, sleep well, and look both ways before crossing streets. But tell stories or die? That’s an ultimatum from a philosopher-poet who needs to cut his hair, shave, and get his head out of the clouds.
Except that it isn’t. All of our lives are stories, and we cannot live without telling them. This is the way God wired up the motherboards at creation. He had a Story to tell, one of creation, fall, redemption, and glorification, and we are all its subplots. Each action and word, from the smallest to the most momentous, develop the plots of our lives, move us individually toward our climax, falling action, and denouement, and, collectively, show us as actors in God’s grand Play. “All the world’s a stage,” yes, and all of life is a Story. The only way to stop telling your story is to die.
We’ve told a remarkable story this year at Augustine Classical Academy. Amid unexpected circumstances, God has led us in new directions, challenged our assumptions, and compelled us to look to him for provision. And as he provided for Abraham in his wandering, and later for the Israelites, he is providing for us. We have a new and wonderful building space in Lakewood, and a community of families united around their commitment to classical Christian education in Denver. We have a Board of Directors, sacrificial to the core. We’ve been blessed with committed, high-quality teachers who love their students and spur them on toward excellence. And we have bright-eyed students, learning about God’s beautiful but broken world, about the importance of being young men and women of action, and about the great promises for the future. This is classical, Christian education, and this is the story God is telling through ACA.
Thank you for loving your children this year, and for seeing the tremendous value of a rigorous, Christian education. I have greatly enjoyed seeing our students grow, from Preschool through Grammar School, and am eager for their future at ACA. May God’s blessings go with you this summer, and may it be a time of rest and joy.
Grace and Peace, Nate Ahern