My second suggestion for the summer is to spend time with your friends.  Now, you may be thinking, “Well, duh, Mr. Gibson – of course that’s what we’ll do over the summer.”  But I mean: Be intentional about it. 

George Washington advised his nephew, Bushrod, that “true friendship is a plant of slow growth.”  Now, many of you have known one another for not even a full year and have already become true friends.  That is a blessing, and it is due in no small part to the fact that you have had the time—in class, at lunch, between classes, at recess, in aftercare, performing concerts and plays, in running club—to cultivate that friendship.  You have shared daily life with one another, and that is possible only by being together.

You may not realize it, but our school is represented by 17 different school districts—not many of us live next door or down the street from one another.  This school is what has brought most of us together.  So, when school is out, it will be up to you to make the time and the effort to be together with your friends, to water that “plant of slow growth.”  And it will be worth it—for as Aquinas said: “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”

So, read a book because you want to, not because you have to; and be together with your friends.  I’ll have another suggestion for you tomorrow, but for now…

Have a wonderful day.