It was the fifteen minutes around 10am. The bell rang and everyone headed outside. Sometimes, it was to a playground with swings and slides; other times, it was just cement with a four square court and a couple of red rubber balls. Unless it was raining or really cold, everyone left classrooms and books behind to get some fresh air and run off some excess energy. When the bell rang, everyone went back inside to their desks and the next subject.

Recess is good for many reasons. Children can concentrate better if they get a break in the learning to move around and rest their minds between subjects. There are fewer disciplinary problems because recess lowers frustration. Having time to talk with friends means fewer side conversations during class time. Because it doesn’t produce quantifiable results, its value is noticed more in its absence. And it is noticed.

Taking a break, going outside for some fresh air and a quick walk, having a conversation – a few minutes away from whatever we consider our important work may not result in more pages written, more spreadsheets filled, or additional organizing accomplished. But it’s silly to think that recess isn’t just as valuable for us after our school years as it was during them.

It’s good for the soul to take a break, to look up and out at this big, beautiful world and marvel at the life around us and within us. Grow into the wisdom of childhood: get outside and reclaim recess.

I never thought about it much – what I said every school day morning when the teacher took attendance.

Here.

I am here. I exist in this time and place. This unrepeatable day brought me here, of all places. In this space, with these people.

Here.

This is where I live and breathe.

Here.

To be fully in the present moment. To be called by name. If I’m at all aware, then this is a sacred moment.

But that’s a big if…

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me – I am too often unaware.

Compass, Ruler, Protractor – required school supplies that are rarely used after graduation. Unless, of course, you are an artist, architect, builder, woodworker, or crafter. These help you draw a good circle, a straight line between two points, and figure out the degree of an angle. With the right notation, a plan drawn on paper – landscape, building, airplane, boat – can be made three dimensional. All that’s needed is the scale.

That’s the thing, though: the scale. What we sketch out in our lives, if not kept in scale, can end up in laughter, a lesson learned, or disaster. Proportion is important. Whether or not we ever use these instruments after graduation…

At the beginning of August, we made the annual trip to Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Porteous Mitchell to pick out clothes and shoes. What we couldn’t find in stores, we found in the pages of the Sears catalog. Just about everyone we know did the same, although the choice of stores might vary. Most everyone got at least one new outfit and a new pair of shoes for the first day of school; after that would come the outgrown hand-me-downs from older siblings. That new outfit heralded the new school year just as much as a new home room and a new grade level.

School shopping is still alive and well; the local Target is full of families preparing for the upcoming year. So is the local LLBean – backpacks and water bottles. But a new outfit for the first day of school isn’t as big a deal – people buy new clothes throughout the year and in larger quantities than in the ’60’s and ’70’s.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing that a new school outfit is no longer a must-have. It must have been an awful way to begin the year for the children who didn’t have them, and heart-breaking for the parents who couldn’t provide them. That doesn’t mean there aren’t judgements made about clothes: now, it’s the designer label rather than the newness that matters. No matter the era, some way of separating those with more than enough from those with enough from those with not enough is in place.

Years ago, when talking with a guest about living into higher levels of compassion and spirituality, Oprah Winfrey remarked that she liked to visit those upper levels of spirituality for tea, but would choose to live on a lower level – because the wardrobe was better there, and she didn’t want to give that up. It got a laugh, of course, but a slightly uncomfortable one.

The first day outfit in elementary school, the team or work uniform, the gowns worn to mark advanced degrees earned, the stoles to mark ordination; all are outward signs of intellectual accomplishment or requirements fulfilled. Is it when we no longer need these, when we put these aside, that we walk through the doors of the house of wisdom and love, comfortable in our own skin and ready to learn?