JEB Stuart High School - Sabre Yearbook (Falls Church, VA)

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13 □ Robin ponders. Phyllis contemplates. . . . through understanding We sought to understand: Color, sound, sea and sky; the mysteries of the universe. We strove to comprehend why the rain falls and the ocean roars, to analyze the heights of the sky and the depths of the sea; and we learned that with determination and belief in our ideas, these mysteries can be solved. But there is another and broader kind of understanding. For the real secrets of nature’s mysteries lie not within themselves but in their effects upon our feelings. Why is the sound of a gentle rain falling at night comforting? How can the simple gift of a white cloud in a blue sky make us happy to be alive? These things cannot be analyzed; they beg only to be seen, heard, felt, and then accepted with faith, hope, and love. To understand is to be compassionate, and to be compassionate includes caring about every earthly thing and any heavenly Being, and caring about things makes existence worthwhile. It is a more beautiful thing to understand life’s emotional mysteries than to solve its factual equations. The key to understanding is not always a mathematical formula; more often it is merely the absorption of the world around us. OPENING

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OPENING □ 12 Understanding is universal.

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OPENING □ 14 The Jordan Singers. through expression Perhaps the greatest part of our growth came through learning to express ourselves. This year we attempted to communicate our inner feelings gracefully and meaningfully. Life presented itself like a spectrum: the tangible—practical and material things—lying in the visible half, and the intangibles—emotions and ideas—falling in the invisible half. Ours is forever the task of expressing this spectrum. We were creative and we were impatient: impatient in our eagerness to tell the world about what we saw, heard, and felt in our lives. We gathered pianos, guitars, vocal cords, paints, brushes, pens, and pencils and we related our emotions and thoughts as best we could. In all our learning, the hardest parts were understanding what we felt and believed, and conveying our feelings exactly. The youth in us rebelled and tried to communicate our knowledge, our experiences, our hopes, and our beliefs to a world sometimes too busy to realize that we have thoughts and knowledge. Now we turn from the intangible to the tangible. In the following pages the 1966 Sabre depicts the faculty, the students, the activities, and the endeavors that made 1966 the year of growth it was. Media for expression.