By Adrian Pyle, Director of Chaplaincy and Connections
For use in councils/boards of schools who value or connect to the characteristics of the Uniting Church (or are just exploring them). It may take you about five minutes to read aloud at the start of a meeting. There is a video version of this reflection located at the bottom of this page. (Approximately five minutes to read aloud at the start of a meeting).
Chair’s introduction (optional script):
“As part of our meetings this year, we are taking a few minutes at the start to pause with a short reflection. It is not a sermon or a lecture, just a way of stepping back briefly and asking what might be shaping us beneath the surface as we lead. The aim is not to resolve anything immediately, but to give us a shared lens before we move into the agenda.”
Why this reflection?
Every board inherits ways of seeing. Over time those ways become normal. We grow used to certain assumptions, certain voices, certain interpretations of what is happening in the life of the school. Often this works well because experience and stability do matter.
Still, it may be worth asking whether institutions sometimes develop blind spots precisely because they are functioning smoothly. Governance is not only about making decisions, it is also about how we interpret events, stories and disruptions when they arise. A brief pause at the start of a meeting can create space to notice what we may not be noticing.
What’s the story this month (one that many Uniting Church communities of faith are hearing)?
This month’s reflection is loosely based on a Biblical reading from John 9:1 to 41. This story begins with a man born blind. Jesus heals him. What follows is not celebration but investigation. Religious leaders question him, question the motives of his parents, and question the circumstances. They are unsettled. The healing does not fit their framework. Eventually the man is pushed out of the community.
It is tempting to cast the authorities in this story as villains. Yet they appear to believe they are protecting coherence and order. They are guarding what they understand to be true. The story seems less about individual malice and more about institutional anxiety. When new light appears, systems can feel threatened. The man gains sight and the structure struggles to adjust.
At one point he says, almost simply, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” It is a quiet statement of lived reality. The question beneath the story may be this: who is permitted to define what is real?
Where else this idea shows up:
The concern that institutions can mis-see is not unique to this story.
In Buddhist thought, the concept of avidyā speaks of ignorance not as stupidity but as conditioned perception. We see through habits shaped by upbringing, culture and fear. Awareness requires a willingness to question those habits. It is not automatic. It takes practice.
In many African philosophical traditions, expressed through the language of Ubuntu, there is a conviction that a person becomes fully human through relationship. “I am because we are.” When one member of the community is diminished or excluded, the whole community is diminished. So if someone is pushed out for speaking truthfully about their experience, the loss is shared.
Across these traditions there is a similar caution to be considered. Communities either expand their understanding together, or they shrink in on themselves.
What this might mean for school boards:
Boards are not neutral observers. They are meaning-making bodies. They interpret events. They decide which stories gain traction and which are explained away. When a complaint surfaces, when a new idea disrupts routine, when a student or staff member names an uncomfortable truth, our first instinct matters.
Do we move quickly to defend the system? Or do we stay with the discomfort long enough to test whether something genuine is being revealed?
Justice in governance is not only about formal policies. It may also be about whose experience is treated as credible. The story of the blind man gently but firmly suggests that institutions can exclude the very person who carries the truth they need to hear. Ubuntu would add that when this happens, the whole community is diminished, not just the individual concerned.
Two Uniting Church characteristics resonate strongly here:
Firstly there is the characteristic of “entering into justice for all peoples and the environment”. This characteristic asks how decision-making frameworks reflect a commitment to justice. It invites boards to consider whether our processes genuinely protect those on the margins, especially when their stories unsettle established narratives.
Secondly consider the characteristic “courageously elevating difficult subjects and evolving responses”. The Uniting Church speaks of remaining open to correction. That phrase carries weight. Openness to correction does not weaken governance; it may strengthen it. It signals a culture willing to learn rather than merely defend.
Taken together, these characteristics suggest that strong governance is not only confident; it is corrigible.
A few questions to sit with:
These are not necessarily for immediate answers, but perhaps to let travel with us through the meeting:
- Where might our structures make it hard to see what is in front of us?
- When someone’s experience challenges our preferred narrative, how do we tend to respond?
- Are there subjects we quietly avoid because raising them would require us to adjust long-standing assumptions?
- What would it look like for this board to be known not only for stability, but for its willingness to be corrected?
