Three Roads

Some of us who have returned to Northfield over the years have found it to be always more than it appeared to us at first … more than an ancient pedagogy … more than a welcoming school … more than a good memory. We have sensed that Northfield has been frequented by other travelers … from every age … most of whose names and stories we will never know … but with whom we share a special experience … our moment standing where they once stood and looked out … from a place where three life-roads meet … tradition, community and joy.

Tradition – trans "over" + dare "to give"

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.”

― Jaroslav Pelikan

Nobody can possess a tradition … they can only become a part of it … extending its reach from the lives that have past towards the lives yet to come … like a mighty chain of temporal links stretching out … as if to anchor some unseen beginning to some unknown ending. In that sense, what matters most about Northfield is not its reputation but its integrity … and not its length of life but its strength of purpose. Are its metals true … will it hold … and be a reliable link from the past to the future? We believe so.

Community - co “together + munire “to fortify”

“No man is an island, entire of itself … any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

― John Donne

But time is fleeting ... and tide waits for no man. Northfield’s link in the chain of tradition must be forged today … by those here now ... assembled for this special task by myriad circumstances beyond mortal choices. For the tools of learning and the mandate to use them are held in common by all living souls. And so we must labor ... together … day by day … year after year … redeeming the time that God has allotted to us. We must be about the work ... for ourselves, our families and our neighbors.

Joy - gaudere "to rejoice"

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

― Dr. Seuss

And when it is done … when our time at Northfield is finished … what will we take with us as we continue on our life-journey? Will it be a brief candle … or a lasting light? We like to think that students leave Northfield bearing, in their torch, an enduring flame … that still and will burn brightly … and, when held high, will always bring together those who are willing to study and those who are able to teach in the search for learning … and what could be better than that?

Gaudeamus igitur … [therefore let us rejoice]