Dear St. Andrew’s Community,

The remaining weeks of the year are easy to rush. It’s tempting to fill this time with noisy obligations that meet the hurried momentum of the season. As ever, I find myself wanting something different for our community, a season of reflection, preparation, and practice. The Christian calendar has named this season Advent, the four weeks when we wait attentively for the birth of Christ in a shabby barn. Yet the wisdom of Advent is not exclusive to any one faith. It reminds us all—seekers, believers, and non-believers alike—that life is long, and that miracles often arrive in the smallest and simplest forms.

Over Thanksgiving, I read a book that captured this spirit perfectly: The Place of Tides, a work of nonfiction by James Rebanks. The book follows Anna, an older woman living on a Norwegian island the size of a soccer field, who spends each summer gathering the down of eider ducks. Her task is meticulous and vanishingly small: a whole season of work produces enough down for just one duvet. Anna’s work becomes a meditation on humility—on the power of showing up, quietly and faithfully, for the work in front of us.

When he joined Anna on the duck island, Rebanks expected to meet a savior figure, someone preserving a species and guarding a tradition. Instead, he encountered a woman uninterested in projecting her importance. Her wisdom lay in her smallness, in her capacity to disappear into her surroundings and attend wholly to the life before her. Rebanks writes that in our current world—full of noise, self-projection, and the desperate desire to be seen—Anna offered an alternative: a way of living that begins with stillness, trust, and a deep devotion to place and people.

This reminded me of St. Andrew’s. This community depends not on grand gestures but on daily acts of care: finishing the assignment, showing up for rehearsal, wiping the tables, listening closely, asking for help, and offering it. We are what we do; small acts knit a community and build a good life.

As Advent teaches, and as Anna showed, real heroism rarely announces itself. None of us ever “arrives.” We remain learners—children—growing in wisdom through the constancy of our shared work. So, in these days of Advent, my hope for all of us is simple:

• Stay small. Go outside. Be still.
• Do the unglamourous work in front of you. It matters.
• Care for the person beside you. 
• Ask for help if you need it.
• Trust that tiny deeds form the bonds of community and the foundation of a meaningful life.

Thank you for the trust and love you hold for St. Andrew’s. I am grateful for each of you, and I wish that you may glimpse the quiet, humble light that Advent promises.

In partnership,

Joy McGrath
Head of School