A series of Chapel services on 'Caring for Creation' has been linked to the needs and priorities of the School community in recent weeks.

At the end of last term, the focus was on care of the self as a central part of the created order, particularly the need for a balanced life and for rest without guilt.
The beauty of Creation, and the mess we tend to make of it, coincided with the launch of the recycling program, an initiative of the community care and concern committee.

This week, we reflect on our wealth and the responsibility we have to use it well. Wealth itself is not the core issue so much as our approach and attitude towards it. We come into the world with nothing and take nothing with us. What we have is on loan. We are stewards for what ultimately belongs to God.

Grammar boys respond well to the needs of others, both in terms of their giving and their genuine concern for those who are less well-off (in some way or other) than they are. At this week's Assembly, $10,000 was donated to cancer research as a result of the head-shave in Term 1. Boys are currently active in making a concerted effort in support of: the breast cancer program, victims of the earthquake in China and, closer to home, of the winter food drive sponsored by Anglicare. In this latter campaign, boys are asked to donate tins of food or other dry foodstuffs to support the needy, of whom there are plenty within our own city.

The practical benefit of our giving is, of course, centrally important. What matters, too, is the fact that it makes us think, and think differently. 'Mindfulness' is an attitude we wish to cultivate in our boys, especially where the needs of others are concerned.

The feeding of the five thousand demonstrates mindfulness on the part of Jesus' disciples who were anxious for the physical well-being of the crowd that had followed Jesus into the countryside. They must be fed!

And the boy who was prepared to give up his lunch as his sacrificial contribution to the cause at hand is another example of mindfulness. He answered the question, 'What can I do to make a difference?'.

Even though it was small enough, what he gave will be wonderfully used by God. We can be sure that when we give and leave it to God to work miracles, we are part of their making.

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men. And Jesus grew.....

People don't come ready made, not even Jesus. Jesus, the unique God/man shared with us this earthly life. He experienced what we do including the growing pains of being young and going through the struggles. And, we read, as he grew in wisdom and stature (these don't always go together!) he grew in favour with God and people around him. It doesn't just happen. A former colleague of mine used to refer to young people as 'apprentice human beings', always climbing up the learning curve. We know very little about Jesus' childhood. Certainly, it didn't start easily. He and his parents were refugees, running away from a tyrannical and murderous regime. He took up his father's trade and probably had all the cuts and swollen fingers that are the consequence of such apprenticeship. And I suspect that he had a few other scars from his growing up, too. Don't we all?

But the one story we do know about is the time he disappeared in Jerusalem-every parent's nightmare. Off on his own, not telling them where he was going. How very normal. Part, no doubt, of his learning curve and, of his parents learning curve.

I have five children; we learn as parents that it takes a little while to grow in the confidence that they will be all right, we just have to let out the string, bit by bit to see how well they manage on their own. And, young men of Canberra Grammar, you are the ones who can teach your parents, bit by bit, to have confidence in your maturity, your ability to manage freedoms and that, yes, you will be OK. I think that's what we mean by 'growing in favour'. It requires mutual trust, honesty, courage and the best sort of communication, speaking and hearing the truth in love. We adults tend to try to rush through this time of adolescence and get to the other side as soon as we can. But it can' t be hurried. It is a special time where attention needs to be given to the right kind of nurture and let time take its course. But what do we grow INTO? What are we looking for in the fully-grown man? There is a clear message in the reading from Romans. We are unique, each of us, in God's creation. We are born with varied gifts, some big and shiny, some less spectacular. But your mix of gifts, and mine, is unique. You are the only one who can be you.

We live in a culture where there is so much choice. It takes me twenty minutes to choose a toothbrush, never mind the right superannuation plan or mobile phone package. But we cannot choose who we are. We are creatures of God. Our gifts are God-given, and it makes no sense to try and be someone we are not. Anything else can lead, in my experience, to an inauthentic life, one that is shadowed by a lack of fulfillment. There are a lot of unhappy people living life that way. But we can choose HOW to be who we are. St Paul tells us how to use our bag of gifts. Live in peace with others, help, encourage, serve, exercise patience, care for others. Like most Christian logic, it's pretty counter-cultural. My peace I leave you, not as the world gives, says Jesus.

Here at School, in our pastoral work, that part of the educational programme that deals with the whole person, the values and the nature of our being, we ask the question: What makes a good man? We can all think of numerous really good men (and I include women among them) who have shown those qualities of selflessness and service, of compassion and self-sacrifice that make us identify them as 'good'. Names like Weary Dunlop, Gandhi, perhaps, Mandela. But one comes to my mind as the one who most embodies these things and yet who has the greatest humility - Jesus. Humility has its linguistic origins in the Latin word 'humus', that part of the soil which is fertile and life-giving. Humility and greatness have their roots in those places where newness of life and growth are best nourished. Great people are those closest to the earth. And we need to water the roots, in a world where we expend far too much time and effort on just watering the leaves. I can't think of a better man to try to be like than Jesus, who was at his most powerful when he was at his most helpless, stretched out on the cross. As Paul says in our second reading 'just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows'.

Christ is our comfort and companion. In the toughest places of our growing, we know God is there with us. The experience is his, too. And one more thing. Jesus didn't try to do it all on his own, either. His companions, his 'mates', might have run away from him when he most needed them, but he built around himself communities, groups of people to share the load and carry on. God is pretty relational. It is in community that we find meaning and the shared strength to get the work done, prodded, encouraged and sustained by the Spirit of God. Our School Houses are those communities and we need to remember that old African saying – it takes a whole village to educate a child. Not a city, nor an economy. It takes a village. Our Houses are your village in this city, a place of love, the right kind of supportive discipline, of common purpose, of shared joy and excitement, of shared troubles and lightened load in difficult times. And they are places of great humility.

That, I think is the best way to prepare our boys for the road ahead. Let us give thanks for that. The best thanks we can offer is to do it well as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes, in Silence and Honey Cakes about religious education. For him, it focuses on what he calls 'peaceful worthwhileness'. Each person, he says, 'as he or she is at rest, is worthwhile, they don't become worthwhile by all they do when not at rest'.

Going further, he stresses that children and young people need this experience, and help to experience it, to discover and explore their full humanity. Religious education is not about 'bolting on more information'. It requires us to look inwards as much as we look outwards, if not more so.

Our culture is increasingly busy, driven and crammed full of activity, much of it of dubious worth. Schools can often echo this and, by their very busyness, reinforce the messages of our culture. We need to allow, and encourage, the young (as well as the not-so-young) to give time and space to reflection and quietness, moments of stillness that are as appealing and as familiar as the continuous audio whiteout of the iPod. We use noise to drown out the noises we prefer not to hear, the cry of the needy, the struggle and strife of human life.

Sadly, the beauty of birdsong, the wind in the gum trees or the unblemished sounds of silence are collateral damage. We have learned not to know stillness, not to understand it and so lose the beauty of its completeness.

Busyness itself is not the problem. More, it is the attitude we bring to what we do, so often drenched in anxiety and pressure. Our learning, our creative moments, our sport, too, must be cherished for their intrinsic worth, for what they bring to us in the sacrament of the present moment. Otherwise, we live life as performance art, or in a state of constant competition.

The Archbishop warns that we risk creating 'a shrunken humanity' if this is what we nourish in our lifestyle and our schools. He says, too, that it is the whole atmosphere of the school that builds a right approach, and it is a comfort to me that CGS has an understanding of the complete spectrum of human endeavour in its educational offering. The RaVE curriculum, work in the outdoors, and in Chapel, all reinforce the message of stillness within the human experience.

In our holiday time, we should take care to maintain the balance, both in how we spend our time and in the attitudes we adopt towards it. All time is sacred, but holidays are holydays first and foremost. Let our R&R be real time for rest and re-creation.