This week I made an address at the Ceremony of Achievement that marks the last days of our Year 6 girls as they leave for their Senior Schools. Several people asked me if I could put it here on my blog site to be re-read:
“I am sure many of you have read Harry Potter, or seen the films and remember the mirror of Erised. This mirror doesn’t show what is standing in front of it, nor does it show in some magic way what the future will hold, or who is the fairest of them all, this mirror just shows what is desired most by the person looking in.
Professor Dumbledore warns Harry, that lives are wasted by staring into a future that is based on desire for what that person just wants. These are wise words, not because we shouldn’t desire good things, or want to offer the best of ourselves in life, but because we would be fools to think that life will open its doors and happiness and riches to us just because we want it to.
All of you in our leaving class have many God given talents and gifts. We have celebrated some of these this morning, but many of you can only glimpse at what you might achieve in later life, what might become ‘your thing’, or what you may come to love. Some of you, with your limited experience of life will not have any idea of what wonders are to come, or what you could achieve. I spend much of my free time singing with choirs or composing music, but had no idea I could sing until I was 29 years old!
I know that most of you will have watched those Saturday night programmes where people with not much talent beg to be allowed one more chance to become famous … because they really REALLY want it, or because it was a dying grandmother’s greatest wish. If you model your life on something that does not take account of what you can do, backed up by hard work, by finding your way, and by gently and happily allowing life to unfold around you each day, with all of the joys and terrors that can bring, then you may never find yourself or the happiness you deserve. You may find yourself staring into that mirror of desire and wondering what happened.
So here is my parting advice to you as Head Teacher:
· Make a friend by being a friend.
· Remember what it might be like to be someone else’s shoes and don’t lose sight of the fact that they are a person with feelings just like you
· Do what you say you will do – be honest, have integrity.
· Don’t give up too easily – success is rarely instant.
· Don’t wait for opportunities to be created for you – make them yourself. (I am friends with a world class organist who was turned down lessons with one of the best teachers. So he turned pages for the organist in the local church and built his great success by helping someone else, in the right place at the right time.)
· Follow your plans and your talents not just your dreams. Be realistic, hardworking and smart, and never think that life comes to you while you sleep.
· Lastly, always in the tradition of St Jeanne remember to stretch out a hand to others, as it is in giving to others that we ourselves are made whole and wonderful people
Girls, I do hope you have been happy in your earliest years at Notre Dame School. You have each of you been a credit to us and to your families. I pray that this continues wherever you go, near or far and that you always remember the friends, teachers, Sisters and community that brought you to this place, ready to jump off into the world of the big school.
Parents, Godparents and friends, I thank you for all you do for these lucky girls, and trust that with your support and guidance they will find that some of their dreams are able to be realised not just through good fortune and chance but through their own efforts and determination to build on the firm foundations they have developed here at Notre Dame School and in your homes. I know you want the best for these children and that you want them to be the best they can be – let them guide you too and allow them to become the person God intended, to become who they truly are.”
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