{"id":22773,"date":"2022-12-15T14:23:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T20:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=22773"},"modified":"2022-12-15T14:24:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T20:24:46","slug":"seeing-the-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/seeing-the-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing The Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"from Bill Hudson, head of school<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly every day, I see a flurry of activity on the treetop outside my office window. It seems to be the place for several female cardinals to congregate. While less showy than the male cardinal, they have a beauty of their own. Somewhere along the line, I heard that cardinals are a sign of our loved ones that have died. I take solace in that idea and think of my dad. Whenever I spy a cardinal, I am reminded of my dad\u2019s unconditional love for me and how he patiently accompanied me on my journey toward a better self.<\/p>\n

The cardinals outside my window also remind me of the poetry of Mary Oliver. Her book, \u201cRed Bird\u201d begins and ends with poems about, what else, red birds. In the first poem, \u201cRed Bird,\u201d the poet is grateful that \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cRed bird came all winter
\nFiring up the landscape
\nAs nothing else could.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fiery red of the cardinal against the snowy whiteness of winter can be startling. It can jolt me out of the day-to-day drudgery of the cold and wet weather to see anew the beauty of winter. In the final poem of her book, \u201cRed Bird Explains Himself,\u201d Oliver shares with us that the purpose of the red bird is \u201cto be the music of the body\u201d because our bodies need \u201ca song, a spirit, a soul.\u201d The red bird has been sent \u201cto teach this to your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

When there seems to be an endless online feed of discord and division, the red bird breaks through winter to remind us of the goodness, love, hope, and life right before us, that may not always be noticed. As we depart for winter break, may you spy a red bird, and may the fiery red be the jolt you need to see the goodness of others and the world around us.<\/p>\n

Have a wonderful winter break!<\/p>\n

Red Bird
\nby Mary Oliver<\/p>\n

Red bird came all winter
\nfiring up the landscape
\nas nothing else could.<\/p>\n

Of course I love the sparrows,
\nthose dun-colored darlings,
\nso hungry and so many.<\/p>\n

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
\nI know he has many children,
\nnot all of them bold in spirit.<\/p>\n

Still, for whatever reason\u2014
\nperhaps because the winter is so long
\nand the sky so black-blue<\/p>\n

Or perhaps because the heart narrows
\nas often as it opens\u2014
\nI am grateful<\/p>\n

that the red bird comes all winter
\nfiring up the landscape
\nas nothing else can do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Bill Hudson, head of school Nearly every day, I see a flurry of activity on the treetop outside my office window. It seems to be the place for several female cardinals to congregate. While less showy than the male cardinal, they have a beauty of their own. Somewhere along the line, I heard that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,28,24,14,29,9,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-school","category-current-families","category-featured-posts","category-heads-message","category-homepage","category-lower-school","category-middle-school","category-upper-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22773"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22781,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22773\/revisions\/22781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}