The Old School Desk Upstairs

 The Old School Desk Upstairs

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

 

The old wooden school desk stood watch. The supporting black rod iron supported the seats which offered stability. The reflective sheen upon the wood hadn’t been touched for years and yet, she remained a beauty.

A student could slide nicely into the seat from either side. Alphabetical order or perhaps behaviorally students were placed for safekeeping within the confines of the wooden desks.

 The pencil holding groove etched deep into the top of the desk so as not to dislodge the fat black pencil each student had been given on day one was duly noted.

Years have passed since this desk found use within the school building from whence it came. Now and again our grandkids on overnights sit within it while “learning,” yet, the wood, the iron, and the strength of the design loom large within the framework of the A-frame where it now sits. This desk, having been purchased by mom at auction years back, serves as a reminder of the sacred past of my school years grades 1-8 at St. Raphael’s. No updates needed to date as it stands stalwart as a story all its own.

I suppose it only makes sense that one child with one uniform should have as a reminder one desk used. Cause long ago, the one uniform had one closet in which to sit alongside one pair of shoes. The one who did the purchasing had one job and the commitment to it was one lifetime because they served within one community and within the community, each served the others.

One hand-me-down went to the next one down or the neighbor across the road. One dollar was one big deal as was one penny found along the road. One stamp upon that penny said it all and one was blessed when they picked it up. “In God we trust,” it read, and so we did.

“One nation under God” we pledged as one. And, we believed it and many still do.

Yes, it’s amazing what memories can be conjured up from one item within one room within the one home in which we’ve lived our whole married lives to one another upon one farm.

I suppose blessed would be one word to describe it, but better yet, His Word, found in one book is better still. It proclaims well the Word made flesh that dwelt among us.

Truth is, in sitting in that one desk as one little child, I remember well what was taught. We were taught that one thing mattered most in the whole wide world. That one thing that mattered most and still does is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31).

Those things have never and will never change as an abiding discourse throughout the course of one’s life. May it be so.  Amen.