Welcome to the Porch: A Place for the Really Human Things

Welcome to the Porch: A Place for the Really Human Things

Our founding essay on the vision, convictions, and invitation behind The Porch, written by David O’Neil, Head of School.

Every generation returns, in one way or another, to the same enduring questions. Why are we here? What does it mean to be human? How do we make sense of evil and suffering? What is a good life? What is freedom for? What do love, work, responsibility, sacrifice, and faithfulness ask of us? The list runs the length of our lives. These are not questions for specialists or academics alone. They belong first to ordinary people trying to live meaningful lives. They arise around tables with family and friends, in seasons of suffering and loss, in the sacred work we undertake in every job, in the raising of children, and in those quiet moments when attention gives way to wonder and we begin to ask what our lives are truly for.

As an educator, my deepest longing has always been to help people learn to think and live in such a way that joy and goodness might mark their lives in every season. My simple answer to how this might be experienced is that the Christian life is more than we can imagine and offers a joy that knows no end. No one can plumb the depths of its truth, measure the breadth of its beauty, or exhaust the love and peace that are found in communion with Jesus Christ. And yet the Christian life is also full of mystery, questions, and seeming paradoxes. So as we go further up and further into this sort of life, our holy attention to it gives rise to greater awe, wonder, gratitude, and surrender.

Continue to read our founding essay on on Substack (@theporchoc)

Artwork by Schooner, Joe Duncan Gleason 1930s, The Hilbert Collection