Knightly News

At our opening Eucharist for the Faculty and Staff at in-service this year, members of our wonderful music department sang for us the old hymn, “There’s A Sweet, Sweet Spirit In This Place,” and truer words have never been spoken. Or sung, I suppose. There is a spirit in our school that doesn’t exist everywhere and I hope that we never take it for granted.  

In the Episcopal Church, as well as other churches, the Day of Pentecost comes 50 days after Easter, and it is often thought of as the literal birthday or beginning of the Church as an institution. From Acts 2 Luke writes, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

Not only does the Spirit give them the ability to speak in different languages, but as Luke tells us later, somehow, they were also able to understand each other. They didn’t all become the same. They didn’t all start speaking the same language, they spoke in languages other than their own and they understood what others were saying.

That’s kind of the way I think of the start of school each year. We all come-faculty and staff, students, parents, family and friends-to a place where the Spirit allows us to hear, know, and understand each other in special and maybe even miraculous ways. We grow from the differences that we all bring. We learn because we share in the experiences of others. We learn to love here… because we are loved here.

God’s Spirit moved over the waters of creation, and that same Spirit is with us in our re-creation every year. We are constantly being made new in the image of God over and over again when we come and gather in this incredibly special place. Sometimes it’s easy to spot-in chapel and in the prayers, in children’s voices lifted in song, in the kindness and compassion that is so often on display-but other times it might be harder to spot. The Spirit might be revealed to us in a quiet conversation, in a subtle smile, in an act of sportsmanship that goes unnoticed by a stadium full of screaming fans.

But it’s there.

There is indeed, a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place and I hope that whether you are here every day, or whether you only make it onto campus every so often, that you will see it, experience it, feel it, and share it. The Spirit of Episcopal is alive and well.

The Rev. Kirkland "Skully" Knight

The Rev. Kirkland “Skully” Knight has served in Episcopal schools for more than 25 years. The first ten were spent as a teacher and coach with the remainder as a teacher and chaplain. Skully has been at Episcopal School of Baton Rouge since 2011 and serves as the Senior Chaplain and Associate Head of School for Service Learning. Skully earned his bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and his M. Div. from The University of the South at Sewanee. 

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