What Is the Source of Your Light?

Photograph perspective of the sky as viewed from Hanes Field.

The following sermon was delivered by Headmaster Byron Hulsey on January 8, 2024 during the service at St. Andrew’s Chapel.

After an extended break it’s always good for me to see us all assembled together, now in the new year as we look forward to challenges and opportunities, known and unknown. But at this time of year, it can be hard to be “happy.” Generations of Tigers agree: this is the toughest stretch of the school year. It’s cold, wet, and sometimes miserable. The sun sets early and rises late, and it’s hard to be outside. Some of us are jet-lagged after flights from halfway around the world. Others are already exhausted. Many of us are a little homesick, at least for the holidays, when we slept late, ate our favorite foods, and did more of what we wanted to do, and maybe less of what we had to do. 

The driving word here is “darkness.” Our counseling team shares  practical tips for how to deal with darkness and anxiety and depression, and those practices include getting good sleep, eating a balanced diet, and exercising regularly. But those good habits are just tools, and don’t do much to make the days last longer or the weather to get warmer. In this darkness, we can get ourselves in a rut-like cycle of self-pity and edgy bitterness. I’ve seen it happen, winter after winter. 

If the practical tips of good sleep, a healthy diet, and routine exercise don’t lead us out of the darkness, what will? Tonight’s reading from Genesis gives us a clue. In the midst of the “darkness that covered the face of the deep,” God said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” It’s light that overcomes darkness and generates hope and courage and love. It is light that is the life force of what it feels like to belong. Through the undeserved gift of life, each of us has been granted that light, and my question for you tonight is to sit for some time with the question, “What is the source of your light?”

It’s a personal question, and it’s important enough to warrant a personal answer. I feel the force of light from moments that I’m paying attention in nature. Over the holidays I was in Denver and on one majestic day Ben, Claire, and I went for a walk at Red Rocks. The stunning beauty of the rock formations set against a cloudless blue sky energized me and reminded me that beauty surrounds on every side, here at Woodberry and beyond. We’re called on to pay attention and take time to notice. A star-swept sky on a clear, dark night is a reminder of unbroken light in the universe, and a reminder that we are just one small speck in God’s creation. If I take time to ponder, I’m reminded of the wonder of life and the utter mystery of my existence. I find that energizing, not paralyzing. 

Beyond nature, another reminder of light for me is family. The oldest boys and veteran faculty know that my wife, Jennifer, died nearly three years ago from cancer. I miss her deeply every day, but she remains an expression of radiant light in my life, and in Ben’s and Claire’s lives, too. This may sound strange to some of you, but I’ve gotten to a place where I don’t want to stop grieving Jennifer’s loss, because putting that down would be like snuffing out the light that she remains in my life.

Sometimes it’s the mere presence of a loved one in our lives that generates light, but occasionally it’s what they say. Not long before Jennifer died, my father died. When the end was near, Jennifer, Ben, Claire, and I went out to Parker County, Texas, in the summer of 2020 to tell him goodbye. It was wrenching, and when it came time to leave, we were all broken up. Wracked with weakness, Dad mustered up the strength to give us all hugs out by the car. Claire needed more, so she went back for a second embrace. He said with great clarity and authority, “Remember Claire, I will always be on your team.” That one declaration about everlasting connectedness even beyond our earthly bodies remains a bright beam of light in Claire’s life, and in mine. 

Out in Denver this holiday, we spent time with Jennifer’s family, including her wonderful mom and dad. Robert may be the kindest man I’ve ever known. And Marilyn is loyal, decent, and very clear-headed. Watching her age has been hard. She’s more and more forgetful, and occasionally vacant, sometimes forgetting what we’ve just said or even our names. But there are moments of incredible clarity and wisdom. Claire was describing challenges she has with her friends, and unexpectedly, Marilyn piped up, “Claire, for me, my friends have been like pieces of a pie. Each friend gives you something important, but no friend can make up the whole pie. That’s asking too much of them.” I doubt Claire will ever forget that wisdom. It’s a ray of light that will help her navigate those times when we find ourselves disappointed in those around us.

I come from a small family, so I’ve chosen to expand it with very good friends and with the sustaining force of the Woodberry community. For me, and I suspect for you, my friends are expressions of light in my life. I count here the men and women in whose presence I’m invited to be my true self, those who accept me, challenge me, forgive me, and those who nudge me, in ways seen but mostly unseen, to live a little more fully into who I am supposed to be. C. Raymond Beran describes a true friend as “a person with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with him.” And the poet and essayist David Whyte observes that “through the eyes of a real friendship, an individual is larger than their everyday actions, and through the eyes of another we receive a greater sense of our own personhood, one we can aspire to. Friendship is a moving frontier of understanding not only of the self and the other, but also, of a possible and as yet unlived, future.” Our best friends shine a light for us on a path through the darkness.

Nature, family, and friends are life-enhancing expressions of the light that sustains me. But what about the source of that light? For me, the source of light is God and my faith in Jesus Christ as the light of the world and the unextinguished pilot light that animates my soul. I’ve learned over the years that the source of light does not come from the world. It does not come from accomplishments or achievements or college acceptances or what the world says about who we are. Instead, it comes from within each and every one of us as a child of God. It’s my prayer for all of us in the year to come that we may live into God’s call to share that light in the midst of the world’s darkness. It’s what I mean when I challenge you (and myself) to take care of each other. It’s what a good man does to make the world a little better. It’s why, after Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, God tore the heavens apart, a dove descended, and He shared what we all yearn to hear, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Not long ago I read an article about Travis Kelce, the tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs and maybe the most known boyfriend on the planet. Kelce had a high school coach who formed him with a simple challenge. “Travis,” the coach said, “people in the world are either fountains or drains. Who are you?” I urge us all to be a fountain, be an illuminator, be a multiplier, be the kind of friend who willingly and happily shares God’s light with the rest of us in the Tiger Nation, and with the world beyond. Amen. 

We, Who are Many, Are One Body

The following sermon was delivered by Headmaster Byron Hulsey on August 27, 2023 during the Opening of School service at St. Andrew’s Chapel.

It’s a great pleasure and privilege to welcome each of you to the start of the 135th school year at Woodberry Forest. Whether you are an old boy gearing up for your senior year, or a new boy just starting out, or whether you are a veteran on the faculty or new in our ranks, the start of any year brings energy, excitement, and a good bit of anxiety, too. You all are, from here, an awesome sight–the whole of the Tiger Nation, and I’m happy that you’re here and eager to make the most of our year together.

The essence of Woodberry is lived community, and coming to St. Andrew’s Chapel once a week is a practiced expression of oneness. That message comes through clearly tonight in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul understands the human temptation to think of ourselves first, often at the expense of others. He urges the Romans instead to embrace humility and “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.” And more importantly he elevates the ennobling power of a community rooted in the love of Christ, making clear that “as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we,” he insists, “who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” 

Those of us who love Woodberry have come to appreciate the way the community yokes us together and lifts us beyond where we’d be on our own. I learned that here as a boy forty years ago, and I want that same experienced revelation for each of you, too. We all benefit from the power of this community, namely through the faculty’s aspirational commitment that every boy in our care will be known, challenged, and loved. And, for our community to maximize its potential, Woodberry expects that boys will learn here how to work hard, build your character, and take care of each other.

Old boys and veteran faculty know that this interconnected way of life may be deeply meaningful, but it is not easy. Every day we’re called upon to prioritize the good of the community over our individual preferences. It’s the small stuff like being on time, tucking in our shirts, staying off our phones and not using earbuds in sacred spaces, and cleaning up the bus late at night after a road trip. And it’s big stuff, too, like stepping up to help a Woodberry brother who’s struggling when everyone else has walked away, raising a hand to stop behavior that you know is wrong, owning a mistake when you could have gotten away with it. In the language of the Boys Prayer, it’s “the hard right over the easy wrong.”

Each of us matters to the good of the whole. And the health of the whole has to matter to each of us. Places like Woodberry are far from perfect, but communities such as ours are less and less common in the world today. Earlier this month the social commentator David Brooks wrote an article entitled “How America Got Mean.” He references a restaurant owner who reports “that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week.” He refers to a head nurse at a hospital who laments that nurses are leaving the profession because patients are increasingly vicious. Mr. Brooks notes that hate crimes, gun sales, and murders in our nation are on the rise, and he laments that the “words that define our age reek of menace: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, and safe spaces.”

Mr. Brooks makes the case that in our country we lack moral-centered communities that elevate us beyond our selfish preferences. At our best, we are that kind of community here at Woodberry. We practice habits that develop into virtues and drawing on the contributions of the many, develop into a life-giving web of humanity that makes us all better. Individual choice matters less than the common good. That’s old-fashioned, but still powerful. Back in 1955 the public intellectual Walter Lippmann wrote that “if what is good, what is right, what is true is only what the individual ‘chooses’ to ‘invent,’ then we are outside the traditions of civility.”

The rampant individualism and turbo-charged selfishness coursing through our country today threatens the health of our democracy. It’s why I asked you to read Richard Haas’s The Bill of Obligations. Those of us who love our country are called upon to prioritize what we hold in common over the selfish agendas that are tearing us apart. Healthy communities are full of citizens who balance their natural rights with their shared responsibilities to the common good. If there is no balance between rights and responsibilities, we will not last long as one body of Americans. The English philosopher Edmund Burke made clear that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” 

Those of us who love Woodberry must continue to shape a different vision for the enduring purpose of this place. For 135 years Woodberry has aspired to be a moral community. We fail, both individually and collectively, every day, but the aspiration has never wavered. I’m reminded of the poet Robert Browning who claimed that “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” My own belief in this aspiration flows from the passion for our mission that springs forth from old boys, veteran faculty, and alumni. We know what makes this place thrive, and the start of this year represents our chance to leave our mark for ourselves and for tomorrow’s Tigers. 

Three weeks ago the prefects joined the dean of students team and me in Colorado to prepare for the year. We finished the week with a discussion about values, and I was impressed and inspired by the group’s articulation of “decency” as a value for the year. The boys made clear that they hope we will all renew our commitment to everyone in the community through simple acts of respect, care, and decency. We might even say that acts of decency and respect represent our belief in the dignity of every one of God’s children in the Woodberry community and beyond. 

I’d like to close with a short reflection on what it means to be a good man, surely an appropriate topic for us in a boys school. I’m struck that men often say they want respect. Sadly, many men in history have demanded respect from others through the exercise of fear and intimidation. That’s the kind of cheap respect that withers and morphs into resentment. It is never enduring. 

Many men say they want respect. But I believe what we all need is more substantive. Simply put, it is purpose. My promise to you tonight is that if you allow yourself to be known, challenged, and loved, and if you learn here to work hard, build your character, and take care of each other, you will find your purpose. And through your daily demonstrations of working hard, building your character, taking care of each other, and simple, consistent acts of decency, you will earn respect, and it’s the kind of respect that often morphs into love and it’s the kind of love that will last you and your Tiger brothers a lifetime. Amen.

The Hour Has Come

Headmaster Byron Hulsey delivered the following sermon on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in St. Andrew’s Chapel before the tradition of Senior Shake.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the essence of time. One of my prevailing memories as a child was wishing and hoping that it would pass more quickly. My father was a priest in the Episcopal church, and Sunday services would crawl by. All I wanted was to go home and watch NFL football. I remember the dull ache of a long school day, when I desperately wanted to go outside and play. Here at Woodberry, I’ve long believed that the days are long and slow, but the weeks fly by in an instant. And now we’re at the end of the year, and it feels in some ways like we just started. 

I’ve always loved the world of athletics, and time is a critical element of so many sports: timeout, overtime, shot clocks and play clocks, step-back threes as the shot clock expires and you’re down by two. Earlier this week I read through the top ten performances in each of the outdoor track and field events through Coach Phillips’ years in the Tiger Nation. In some events, mere hundredths of a second separated the places. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve never understood the ambiguity of extra time in soccer: how exactly it’s calculated and then applied by the referee. I played and coached baseball, one of the few sports historically not governed by time until this year in the major leagues, where there’s now a pitch clock to speed up the games. 

Sadly, we humans spend much of our time dwelling on the miseries of what has already happened or glorying in the distant triumphs of the past. Alternatively, we tend to worry about the difficulties that may come in the future, or dream about how much better our next chapter is likely to be. All the while we miss our lives and the moments of the here and now that shape who we are and who we are likely to become. It has taken me many, many years to anchor myself in the present moment, and, in the words of a man I admire, “be where your feet are.” To be honest, I’m still not as good at being present as I would like to be.

Time is on our minds tonight, and it’s a theme running through the lessons in your bulletins. In tonight’s Gospel reading Jesus is preparing to leave His disciples, telling them very directly, “The hour has come.” For many in the Woodberry community, the hour has come for you to say goodbye. Leaving a community like this is a rite of passage, and it should not be easy. Maybe you are a senior who has been here for two, three, or four years. Perhaps you’re a member of the faculty who’s been here for a year or two, a dean of students who’s been here for four, a chaplain for five, a beloved coach for thirteen, Mr. Reid for forty-eight years, or Mr. Huber for an astounding fifty-one. We’re all called upon to say goodbye.

We know through moments like this that our relationships will change, just as the disciples’ relationship with Jesus changed when He ascended to the Father. I believe in the importance of saying goodbye and leaving well. Learning how to say goodbye well is an important part of a good life, and it is akin to learning how to live with grief. It’s an expression of our character and who and what we value most. The class of 2023 and I and many others in our community have learned to grieve massive personal losses during your years in the Tiger Nation. We’ve had to say goodbye, even when, especially when, we so desperately wanted another outcome. I pray that each of us will draw upon God’s strength to walk through the valley of the shadow and into our grief as part of a good life.

When the Greeks analyzed time they distinguished between “chronos” and the way time is measured with clocks and watches, and “kairos,” which many philosophers understood as “deep time.” It’s like what Gene [Park] was describing yesterday as getting lost in time when he’s coding, those euphoric moments in our lives when we’re in the flow and lose all sense of boundaries. It’s those threshold-like moments when the past, present, and future somehow intersect in magical ways. Aspiring to enjoy more “kairos” like moments is a meaningful goal for all of us. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described the sacredness of the weekly Sabbath and his belief that “we must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.”

Making the most of our moment in time is a good way to lean into these last days and the responsibility we each have to say goodbye. We’re together now, but one day we’ll be alone and we’ll need touchstones like the Boys’ Prayer to tie us one to another, even in our solitude and in our occasional anguish. As Woodberry boys, we’ll always need the tie that binds. For poet William Stafford, it was what he called the “thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it, you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you can do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.” 

And for those periods of grief, either now or in the future, may we draw strength from one another and from God’s peace that passes understanding. For Hannah Coulter, the elderly woman narrator in Wendell Berry’s beautiful novel reflecting on the story of her life, grief is tied inextricably to love like a thread through time. I want to read an extended passage from Hannah Coulter that captures this truth far better than I ever could:

“I began to know my story then. Like everybody’s it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead. What is the thread that holds it all together? Grief, I thought for a while. And grief is there, sure enough, just about all the way through. From the time I was a girl I have never been far from it. But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. Sometimes I could see that love is a great room with a lot of doors, where we are invited to knock and come in. Though it contains all the world, the sun, moon, and stars, it is so small as to be also in our hearts. It is in the hearts of those who come in. Some do not come in. Some may stay out forever. Some come in together and leave separately. Some come in and stay until they die, and after. I was in it for a long time with Nathan. I am still in it with him. And what about Virgil? Once we too went in and were together in that room. And now in my tenderness remembering it all again, I think I am still there with him too. I am there with all the others, most of them gone but some are still here, who gave me love and called forth love from me. When I number them over, I am surprised how many there are. And so I have to say another of the golden threads is gratitude.” 

As Jesus tells his disciples, “the hour has come.” And as we prepare for the Senior Shake and the first of our painful goodbyes, I invite you to join with me in a quiet period of kairos-like reflection. In the spirit of Hannah Coulter, I invite you to reflect upon those in your life who gave you love and called forth love from you, whether in your families, your friends from home, or here in the Tiger Nation. 

May you always know that you are welcome here at Woodberry and may it be for all of us a “great room with a lot of doors.” Perhaps that’s not far from Jesus’ assurance that “in my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Saying goodbye to those you love rips at the heart, and because it hurts, it’s a reminder, ironically, that our cup runneth over. May we always be grateful. Amen. 

The Beloved, with Whom I am Well Pleased

The following sermon was delivered by Headmaster Byron Hulsey ’86 on January 9, 2023 during the evening service at St. Andrew’s Chapel.

Tonight in chapel we celebrate God’s revelation of Jesus as His Son to the world through Jesus’ baptism, that day when Jesus came from Galilee to be annointed by John at the River Jordan. Just as John baptized Jesus and he came out of the water, Matthew tells us in the Gospel reading that “suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” And most climactically of all, a voice from heaven came forth and said of Jesus, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Every single one of us needs love, safety, and belonging to thrive in the world, and we all yearn to hear our fathers and our mothers tell us, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Some of us are fortunate and have received that kind of affirmation from our parents. Many in the world, however, have never felt that kind of unconditional love. And the truth of it is that for us humans, it is virtually impossible to extend it to those we love, no matter how pure our intentions might be. We are all flawed, and because we are shaped by the ego-driven demands of world around us, we all come up short, and mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, friends, teachers, coaches, and advisers often struggle to communicate fully and completely a pure and unbridled and absolutely unconditional love, even for those we love the most. The good news in tonight’s Gospel is that we are offered the undeserved gift of exactly that kind of abiding love from God through Jesus.

When I came to Woodberry as a fourth form new boy from Lubbock, Texas in 1983, I was eager to achieve, but I was poorly prepared for the academic challenges thrust upon me. In particular, I struggled with geometry and especially with biology. I was overwhelmed by the volume of the material, and despite the best efforts of my wonderful teacher, I was never able to embrace his advice and the coaching I give to students today: start by learning the concepts, and as necessary, apply the essential facts to support the core ideas. I was utterly bewildered by the rigors of the course, and feverishly tried to memorize everything just to survive as I drifted between a C+ and B- for the whole of the year. 

The cumulative exam at the end of the spring trimester presented me with what felt like an impossible challenge. There was no way to re-memorize all of the material, and I drifted in and out of feelings of resignation, fear, and despondency as I studied most of the weekend for the final on Monday morning. On Sunday evening we gathered here in St. Andrew’s Chapel after adviser dinner, and I felt like a wreck. I remember exactly where I was sitting–not far from where Mr. Hale’s advisees sit this year. At some point in the service I remember unexpectedly being washed over by the kind of transcendent peace that passes all understanding, an inner presence I will never forget. In my trepidation and vulnerability, the message I received was “You are ok. You are enough.” 

The message didn’t come from my father or my mother–they were home in Texas, and they really wanted me to do well academically at Woodberry. It didn’t come from my friends or my teachers or my adviser or my baseball coach. It was the kind of restorative and inner peace that comes from a higher power through the Holy Spirit to the essence of my personhood in all of my pain and vulnerability, and the message was, at least to me, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

The beauty of this Gospel truth is that because of this gift we are all invited to drop our pretenses and stop the performative fakery. We’re invited, even encouraged, to present ourselves as we really are to God who loves us through Jesus Christ. We need not pretend to be someone we are not. I find this gift to be utterly liberating, and it is one of the bedrocks of my own faith. Moreover, it applies to my beliefs about Woodberry Forest when we are at our best. Woodberry boys for generations have taken great pride in sniffing out fakes, whether in the student body or the faculty ranks. We’re all encouraged here to be who we really are. 

But if we’re being honest, we should all be strong enough to admit that we still, to some extent, fake it and perform, mostly for the favor of others, whether it’s our parents, friends, teachers, coaches, or even the colleges you have applied to or will apply to in the future. The possibility of rejection whips up fear in all of us. Given these realities, we at Woodberry push back against those forces and intentionally challenge ourselves and each other to scrape aside those barnacles and reveal ourselves, first to ourselves, and then to others. 

This kind of practice aligns with why I believe so strongly in the Honor System. In a world of social media self promotion and ChatGPT and crowd sourcing and artificial intelligence, we challenge you to be who you are, and not surrender the beauty of you to some outside power. When you turn in your own work, when you respect what belongs to others, when you tell the truth, even when you are likely to get into trouble, you are stating honorably and emphatically, “This is who I am.” And if you don’t, in the moment, get affirmation from me or from your parents or from your teachers, coaches, and advisers, be open to receiving that message from God through Christ Jesus, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Having received this underserved gift, we’re all called upon to be intentional about how and for what purpose we use it. Here at Woodberry, and in the world beyond, there are innumerable ways that we might reveal our true selves to ourselves, and then to others, ways we might step up to take care of each other. I want to close my homily tonight with a story that might drive the point home, and I share this story knowing that a week from today we will celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the United States.

Just before Thanksgiving I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to participate in a conference of higher education and secondary education leaders on civil rights and race relations sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative. As part of the conference we toured The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is a truly extraordinary memorial that documents and highlights the thousands of lynchings in the South in the years after the Civil War until 1950. Each one of these known lynchings is thoroughly and completely documented in the historical record, and then presented to museum guests in a majestic outdoor memorial. When the museum’s historians document a lynching in a new county, they offer the descendants of the victim an opportunity to take a large jar to the site of the lynching and shovel up dirt to mark the place where this kind of racist vigilante violence occurred. The display of hundreds of jars of dirt from these lynchings at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice is haunting,  beautiful, and unforgettable. 

Not long ago the National Memorial of Peace and Justice confirmed the location of a lynching in a new county in southern Tennessee. Following protocol, they shipped a jar and a shovel to one of the descendants of the victim, an older woman who resolved to fill the jar with dirt underneath a tree off a gravel road in the woods near her home town. This woman was understandably anxious about the work that she had committed to complete. One afternoon she drove to this remote location, got out of her car, looked around, and began to dig into the soil and fill the jar. Not long after, a white pickup came very slowly from the other direction. Now she was really anxious. The pickup crept by her, and she looked up and saw a large white man behind the wheel. It passed, but then turned around and approached her from behind. Now she was downright frightened. 

The man got out of his pickup and stood there as she dug into the dirt. Finally he asked, “What are you doing?” The Equal Justice Initiative trains those filling the jars to not feel obliged to answer such a question. She might have just kept quiet, or she might have said something like, “Getting some dirt for my garden.” But somehow and from somewhere she mustered the courage to say, “One of my ancestors was lynched right here in the late 1890s, and to mark this murder, I’m filling this jar to go on display at a museum in Montgomery, Alabama.” He continued to stand there as she worked away.

Then he asked her, “Would you mind if I helped?” She said, “No. Please do.” She offered him the shovel, but he used his hands and helped her fill the jar with his heaving body. He looked up and saw that a tear was dripping down the woman’s cheek. He said, “I’m so sorry. Have I offended you?” She said, “No. I am happy to have the help.” Not long thereafter, she noticed a tear dripping down the man’s cheek. She said, “Are you ok?” In reply, he said openly and honestly, “I’m just afraid that it was one of my ancestors who did this to your ancestor.” 

The job complete, they took pictures of each other with the jar to mark the moment and hugged. She got in her car to begin the journey to Montgomery with the jar of dirt. He asked, “Would you mind if I followed you to the museum in my truck?” She welcomed his company and support, and together they rode south to Montgomery with a jar of dirt from the site of a lynching over 120 years ago. Taking care of each other. A friendship forged, and some restoration and even redemption from a hateful and heinous crime so many generations ago. I imagine in this moment, knowing that the woman and the man, even in their brokenness and vulnerability, had resolved to do something with the undeserved gift of grace that we all enjoy, God saying from the heavens, “This is my Daughter, and this is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

What will you do with the undeserved gift of God’s unconditional love? Because it is unconditional, nothing–absolutely nothing, is required. But with this gift, each one of us is free and empowered to make the world a little better by embracing the opportunity to take care of each other. Amen.

Showing Hospitality to Strangers

The following sermon was delivered by Headmaster Byron Hulsey ’86 on August 28, 2022 during the Opening of School service at St. Andrew’s Chapel.

Every year in the first week of August, the prefect board joins the dean of students office and me in Colorado to prepare for the journey that lies ahead. On our last evening together after a week of leadership training, and just before the board votes for their senior prefect, the boys agree on values to live by. At first the contributions this year were similar to what I’ve heard before: trust, consistency, respect, and empathy. But then a boy offered a value I’d never heard from a previous prefect board. “Family,” he said. I remember being taken aback, and I asked him what he meant. He said that when he thinks of Woodberry at its best, it’s faculty and students and staff and faculty families. “It’s everyone,” he insisted. 

In my estimation, “family” is an elevating and inspirational expansion of “brotherhood,” an ideal that has inspired many generations of Woodberry boys. Emphasizing family and yoking the idea to our community at the start of the 134th year in the life of the school energizes me for the path ahead, and I’m eager for the opportunities to be connected as one Woodberry family throughout the year to come. Tonight’s readings from scripture offer compelling messages to each of us as we anticipate the twists and turns of the days and weeks to come. 

The Woodberry family includes almost seven thousand alumni, and hundreds of former faculty and staff. And in our midst tonight are 125 new boys and twelve new members of our faculty. It’s a great honor and privilege to welcome you to the Tiger Nation and to the Woodberry family. I want you to come to know Woodberry as a second home. Earlier this week we on the faculty renewed our commitment that every boy in our care will be known, challenged, and loved. This renewed commitment is the best of who we are as teachers, coaches, and advisers. We are very excited that you are here, and we  know from generations of experience that most of you want to be challenged most of the time, especially when you are known and cared for. That is how you feel respected and how we make clear to you that you matter. That will likely work for most of you, most of the time. But if you’re like the boys we’ve had in the past, some of you–for a wide variety of reasons–will resist being known, challenged, and loved.

Working hard to be accepted by the cool kids or fear of the unknown might hold you back. In the midst of likely anxiety and social uncertainty, I call on you to embrace with courage the adventure of allowing yourself to be known, to be truly known, to be challenged, really challenged, and to be loved. If you live bravely into this opportunity, you’ll get more from this experience that you would ever imagine. Day after day you’ll thrive in a web of life-giving relationships as you grow into habits like working hard, building your character, and taking care of each other. You’ll learn to appreciate that “quiet quitting” should never be cool at Woodberry. Ultimately, you’ll take important steps necessary on your own journey to grow from being a needy boy with your own particular preferences to a young man who can be counted on to take care of others, just as you are taken care of in your own times of need.  

Tonight’s epistle to the Hebrews warns all of us in the Woodberry family to “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.” May we all embrace this opportunity to “show hospitality to strangers” and live openly with each other and welcome each other back to Woodberry or to Woodberry for the first time. If a boy is sitting alone in the dining hall or alone in his room, join him and welcome him to the Woodberry community. If you’re a new boy, take heed of the epistle to the Hebrews and the reference to “remember your leaders.” Take time to listen and to learn, even as you lean into the opportunity to be your most authentic self in a community that wants you to excel. Identify the old boys you respect and want to emulate. Stay off the phone and take out your earbuds when you’re on the walkways up the hill. We want to get to know the new members of the Woodberry family, and we want you to get to know us. 

Even as we celebrate family, we’d be wise to remember that not all families are healthy. Earlier this summer my son Ben and I watched The Godfather, and on Friday night, just before Claire and I dropped him off yesterday at Washington and Lee, we watched The Godfather II. These classic movies depict a toxic, crime-laden, and grotesque version of a family wreaking havoc on everyone in their way. At bottom, Michael Corleone’s criminal behavior is not about greed or fear, or power, or riches. It’s about entitlement. He believes he’s entitled to whatever he wants because he’s the Godfather, and entitlement fuels his reckless decision to kill his own brother and loses him his wife and children as well. 

Competing perceptions of entitlement diminish healthy families and corrode human communities. And while we are more healthy than many of the communities in the world today, we struggle with our own competing perceptions of entitlement here at Woodberry. I understand that members of the faculty believe that some seniors historically act that way because we see them as entitled. I also understand that Woodberry boys believe that some teachers act that way because you see us as entitled. I’m very much aware that some members of our staff believe that some boys and some faculty act that way because we come off to them as entitled. There are members of the faculty who believe that some parents act that way because they’re entitled. There are people of color in our midst who believe that some of us act that way because we are entitled. And women in our community who believe that some boys and men act that way because we are entitled. As I reflect on my own leadership, I am certain that there have been occasions when boys or teachers or parents or members of the staff have believed that I misused my power as headmaster because I might come off to you as entitled. In all candor, not a single one of us is completely above reproach. 

These competing conceptions of entitlement can threaten any human community and for sure corrode any healthy family, including ours here at Woodberry Forest. I hope and pray that this year we can remember that we are many individuals yoked together in a common cause and part of a vibrant and life-giving human community that is much bigger than we will ever be on our own. Being part of a family demands our best efforts, grants to us the comfort and care needed to navigate the tough times, and offers moments of utter joy and sheer exhilaration when we’ve climbed a mountain together. 

For this work together we have vital Woodberry artifacts like the Boys Prayer that we will recite in just a moment and Amici, which we’ll sing shortly thereafter. But if we are to activate those artifacts into the generative practice of our daily lives, we’re called upon to renew our commitment to Christian humility as we know, challenge, and love the boys, and as everyone here works hard, builds our character, and takes care of each other. 

Let’s challenge ourselves and each other to be humble and hungry always. Many of you have already embarked upon a mission shaped by humility.  I’m grateful to Coach Matteo for presenting me with the new football shirt with “Sweep the Shed” emblazoned on the front. He made clear in his note to me that it was “earned, not given.” Some of you know that the phrase “sweep the shed” comes from a book about New Zealand’s legendary All Blacks rugby team. Former player Dan Carter writes, “no one in New Zealand likes a big head. In the All Black environment there’s no room for it, and if there’s ever signs of it happening, you’ll soon be brought down to earth…. From the start you learn humility. There are these structures in place, like the fact that we always leave the changing room as clean as when we walked in. So you’ll often see the likes of Richie McCaw and Coach Steve Hansen sweeping the shed.” How many of us will “sweep the shed” this year, on dorm, in the dining hall, or in our classrooms and offices? 

And finally we’re fortified and energized for this work by Jesus’ example in the Gospel according to Luke. We learn from tonight’s reading that Jesus called on the most powerful “to take the lowest place…for all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He also urges “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, and lame and the blind.” May we this year aspire to take care of each other, and may this year be a life-giving year in the rich and storied history of the Woodberry family. Amen.

Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Afraid

May 23, 2022 Woodberry Forest School Senior Shake

Headmaster Byron Hulsey delivered the following sermon on Monday, May 23, 2022, in St. Andrew’s Chapel before the tradition of Senior Shake.

Late last July as part of our summer reunion for young alumni, members of the class of 2015 gathered in front of Griffin to dedicate a tree in memory of their beloved classmate, Christian Magnani. The most memorable and haunting moment of that precious time together was a comment that Christian’s, father, Steven, made about his son’s troubled journey after graduating seven years ago: “Christian was searching for Woodberry in the world beyond, and he never found it.” As we prepare for the senior shake and dive into commencement week and a heart-felt goodbye for the class of 2022, let’s take some time to reflect on what this place means and how, even when it’s over, the experience has prepared you for the path ahead, and how each of you can be a light for goodness and decency in our broken world.

For many days now the members of the class of 2022 have been saying goodbye. We should admit that it’s not easy. Whether it’s through final assignments or senior distinction projects or last games wearing a Tiger jersey, a last musical performance or time on stage, a final seated advisory meal or time to wait a table, it’s not easy to say goodbye. It’s hard for many of us on the faculty, too. We’ve tried in our own clumsy ways to know, challenge, and love you, and our emotional investment in each of you and into the class makes it tough to say goodbye, even as we know it’s time and you’re ready.

The good part of this last week is that you’ll be together. The connectedness of the class and the deep and abiding love you have for each other will make these last days more meaningful. But what will you do when it’s over? Some of my loneliest times in life have come the morning after a big rite of passage: graduation at Woodberry and getting home after beach week; graduation from UVa and the morning after everyone had gone and I felt so weirdly alone; the morning after my best friend’s wedding a year later when there were no more parties to enjoy and friends to see. These feelings of loneliness are hard, and we’re tempted, like Christian Magnani was, to look for the grooved comfort of Woodberry Forest in the world beyond, and realize that it can be so hard to find.

I’ve been asking a number of you what you’ll miss the most. For some it’s the river or the Dick Gym or the Fir Tree or the golf course or seated meals. More than a few have mentioned your friends. One of you said “I’ll miss knowing everyone, and being known by everyone.” You’ll miss Hale and Collier and Erb, Leahy, Broaddus, and Mills and so many others. Of course you know what you won’t miss and are ready to leave behind, but when you’re forced to reflect, you’ll likely agree with me that you’ll miss this place in part because it was hard and you were humbled here. We’ve all learned how to come up short and get up and try again. You bombed a test you thought you’d aced; you came up short in a game you desperately wanted to win; you lost a friend by saying something offensive; you were cut from a team you really wanted to make. I agree with Zadie Smith, who once observed “it hurts just as much as it is worth.” 

We’ve all been humbled here. It’s part of the school’s DNA. The humility that flows through the experience of Friday night study hall and Saturday classes has tempered us because we’ve learned to live by enduring values of character and integrity and discipline and respect; you’ve learned to work hard, build your character, and take care of each other. By design you’ve done it shoulder-to-shoulder and elbow-to-elbow with your friends and the unflinching support of your teachers, coaches, and advisers. Through the doorway to humility, you’ve earned some enduring confidence. You know you’re fundamentally different now than when you came. Most of you know deep in your gut that you matter here, and if you’re being honest, what you likely fear the most is that at least at the start of what is next you won’t matter as much to others as you have meant to us at Woodberry Forest.  

Luckily there’s good news in the midst of of waking up all alone. While you might be sorely tempted to search for visible signs of your future worth through fraternity membership, a popular girlfriend, a new car, or a vacation at the most expensive resort, I’d urge you to remember that those golden calves are fleeting and illusory. Instead I’d encourage you to take some time to soak in the feeling of being alone. Be courageous enough to scrape away the layers of worldly satisfaction that come through class rank and test scores and college admissions or wealth and title and power and prestige. Instead, open yourselves to the utter miracle of being you and the golden opportunity that each of us has to do a little good in the world beyond the Tiger Nation. 

Tonight’s Gospel reading is taken from the last days of Jesus’ life before the Crucifiction. He knows He is headed to a brutal death and that He’ll be with the disciples just a little longer. He says definitively, “I am going away,” but He adds mysteriously, “I am coming to you.” For the class of 2022, the day-to-day physicality of the Woodberry community is going away, but the meaning of the Tiger Nation is forever coming back to you in spirit. Be not afraid, and during those dark nights of the soul, remember what was engraved upon you here, through triumph and disaster, through good times and bad. Flowing forth from the enduring love and decency of friends and teachers, this place will never leave you. By remembering the truths of integrity and kindness and respect and brotherhood, you will be emboldened for the path ahead and you will never be lonely, even when you are alone.

Earlier in the Gospel according to John, Jesus tells his disciples that “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” We’ve tried to instill in each of you a distinctly Woodberry version of the way, the truth, and the life, and I do believe that our version of the way, the truth, and the life can be fortifying, even when we are alone. But of course we here at Woodberry are deeply human and therefore broken and limited and sometimes mistaken and occasionally just completely wrong.

One of my favorite places at the University of Texas in Austin is the south entrance of the Main Building that bears the inscription, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” The older I get the more convinced I am that we humans will never have a secure and lasting hold on the Truth. It will always be contested. But we know through the undeserved gift of God’s grace and through the life and death and resurrection of His son, Jesus Christ, the Truth that we are His creation and that we matter and are good in His sight. Through that good news we are called upon to be a light for others in the world’s darkness.

Not long ago Pope Francis reflected on trees, just like the one planted in memory of Christian and the many magnificent trees that add to the abundant beauty of our campus. Pope Francis makes the obvious point: any healthy tree has deep roots and outstretched branches. Both are necessary, and a life-giving embodiment of the Truth. Pope Francis makes clear that deep roots reflect the enduring confidence that comes through deep humility, a heart-felt recognition that we are all broken and need to be made whole. An unflinching regard for our deep roots generates a life-giving connection to our past and the men and women who’ve shaped us and formed us. It has provided us with the belief that in the words of Pope Francis, “we are all children of one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” 

Mindful of our deep roots, we are strengthened for the path ahead. Wherever you go and whatever you do, your deep roots empower you to be a blessing to others, to give life in the midst of loss and decline, to be for others a beacon of joy, kindness, and compassion. Deep roots and outstretched branches: I pray that the awesome class of 2022 will embrace the opportunity to be a tree of life for others, and through it all remember that you are always welcome home at Woodberry Forest. Amen. 

Out of the Great Ordeal

Headmaster Byron Hulsey delivered the following sermon on April 23, and April 30, 2022 in St. Andrew’s Chapel during the Reunion Weekends.

Not long ago the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published a searing critique of American culture in The Atlantic. Entitled “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” Haidt describes a national culture riven by discord and disunion, one that is fragmented and paralyzed as tribal groups rip into each other for any perceived slight or alleged wrongdoing. Haidt uses the Genesis tale of the Tower of Babel to press his case. You may remember the narrative: God is disgusted by the arrogance of humanity, and to teach us a lesson, He jumbled up our languages, making it impossible for us to understand and communicate with each other.

From Haidt’s perspective, we’ve scrambled our own common vocabulary and our own civic connectedness through powerful social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. Motivated by a desire for profit, masterful programmers have weaponized these platforms through the “Like” button and the retweet and comment functions. In today’s America many of us have found an online tribe, while at the same time growing increasingly distrustful of our institutions — namely our churches, government, our schools and universities, museums, professional associations, and even our doctors, our local leaders, and our caregivers. Most toxic and disorienting of all, we’ve lost trust in our neighbors and our fellow citizens. Jonathan Haidt says we’ve lost our collective sense of community and the common good. 

It’s a bleak view of contemporary American culture, and maybe one that you don’t share. Even if you don’t, I think we can all agree that in the years since we graduated from Woodberry, a lot of life has happened. For sure there have been achievements and accomplishments, times of sustained joy, meaning, and happiness. But for most of us, we’ve lost a lot, too. We come back to Woodberry battered and bruised by the twists and turns of life. Maybe we’ve lost a loved one, or even a child, perhaps a marriage or a family business or a job that we loved and really depended on. In the vagaries of life, every one of us in our personal lives has been thrown to the ground, leaving us feeling like we were an isolated Babylonian, unable to understand or communicate with those we care most about, sometimes unable to communicate even with ourselves.

This morning we gather in St. Andrew’s Chapel to celebrate the ties that bind, the fact that here we have a community with a common language, one with sufficient reserves of social trust, and one that defines itself with the abiding pillars of moral integrity, intellectual thoroughness, good sportsmanship, and a reverence for things sacred. We aspire to be the kind of place that pushes back against the pressures that fracture the world beyond. Instead, we aim to be a place that provides a boy with the chance to take responsibility for his life and to live in a community that matters more than his individual preferences or his momentary conveniences. We seek to be a community that brings each of us as individuals together into a community where our boys will be known, challenged, and loved. And this weekend, we want to be for each of you, exactly that community, a place where we can be ourselves and enjoy the presence of friends and teachers who’ve made us better than we would have ever been on our own.

We get a taste of that vision in the reading from Revelations, which to me serves as the direct counterpoint to the Tower of Babel. In our reading this morning, John reports that “out of the great ordeal…there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” Unlike the broken and alienated individuals after the fall of the Tower of Babel, you’ve come “out of the great ordeal” from all over the country home to Woodberry at a special time in your life and in the life of our community. Here we are one, and we are at peace with ourselves and with each other. I hope that this place sustains you emotionally and spiritually, just as it has sustained me.

As much as I love Woodberry and believe in our ideals and values, I know, too, that we are a very human community and full of flaws and blind spots and men and women and 400 boys who blunder every day, despite our best intentions. Woodberry will never be an end in itself and a place that makes all the crooked places straight. Disappointment and grief and loss and momentary alienation will be part of us for as long as we live. Knowing that is part of what it means to be fully alive. And as we celebrate together this weekend, we come here this morning to remember our brothers who are no longer with us, those who’ve died and made their way beyond the veil. It’s a reminder of loss and a reminder of the precious gift that life is for each of us, even when, especially when, we blunder and struggle, and fail and come up short. 

Through the gift of God’s grace we’re reminded by John that there is, in this season of Easter, life in the midst of death, regeneration and rebirth and resurrection after Good Friday’s brutal crucifixion. We know through the promise of God that one day the great mystery will be made known to us, and that one day we too, perhaps momentarily here at Woodberry but eternally in God’s kingdom, we will forever be among the great multitude where “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Amen. 

With You I Am Well Pleased

Headmaster Byron Hulsey delivered the following sermon on Monday, January 10, 2022 in St. Andrew’s Chapel.

Several years ago I was in Colorado with Mr. LaVoie, Mr. Guldin, Mr. Alexander, and the new prefect board preparing for the year to come. I was stunned at the end of Mr. LaVoie’s presentation when he asked, “How many of you feel like you’re not enough?” By my count, over half the boys raised their hands. These were among the most accomplished and strongest boys in the school, and yet they reported that in our achievement-driven culture, they often feel like they don’t measure up, that there’s not enough time, and that they ultimately let down themselves, their parents, their teachers, coaches, and friends. 

This conversation with these boys was among the toughest that I’ve had in my time as headmaster. As I say, I was stunned. But upon reflection, I should not have been, for we are living in a time that puts enormous pressure on each of us to succeed, and when we don’t, we feel like we’ve failed, and when we feel like we’ve failed, it’s not hard to spiral into a sense of feeling like a failure. This pressure to succeed and to present ourselves as winners is part of the technological age and the rancid power of social media to define for us what the good life supposedly is. 

When we live in the never-enough world of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Tik Tok and Twitter, we’re called upon to construct the ideal version of ourselves. The pressure to look good and present a positive portfolio is unceasing and relentless and creates an atmosphere where we unwittingly exploit ourselves for the interpretation and judgment of others. I’ve heard anxiety described as wanting to be somewhere you aren’t, and this fear of missing out has us feeling unrooted, jumbled, and jangled. Not long ago I read that the average teenager can focus on one task for only 65 seconds a time, and today’s average office worker for only three minutes. No wonder we’re anxious and no wonder we don’t feel like we’re enough. 

The world beyond doesn’t offer much comfort. The 24/7 news cycle highlights the miseries and failures and tragedies all around us, from deadly fires this past week in Philadelphia and Brooklyn to destructive weather events spawned by climate change. We’re now two years into the teeth of COVID, and the losses in human life, health care morale, and social development are staggering and ongoing. Last week we marked the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, when a violent mob attempted to overthrow the certification of what was, by all objective standards, a free and fair election. I recently saw a survey that showed 40 percent of Americans would support a violent coup if it meant that their political party could be in power. We shouldn’t be surprised that the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm has for the first time recently added the United States to its list of “backsliding democracies.”

The conflict and division around us can make us feel less than, and not enough. It’s part of a culture that can chew anyone up. The conservative thinker Andrew Sullivan has lamented that we’re paying the price for a culture that prizes self-presentation above all else. “Create,” Sullivan writes, “a throw-away consumerist civilization, break families into ever smaller units, add a tech revolution, online addiction, economic precariousness, breakneck social change, endless work, and the collapse of religion and meaning, and yes, people will go a bit nuts. They’ll become depressed; they’ll seek out escape through opiates or meth; they’ll disappear down rabbit holes of online fanaticism; they’ll seek meaning through work or fame; they’ll tear each other down with glee; they’ll lose the skills for family friendship, constancy, discipline, and love.”

There is, indeed, much to lament about the world beyond. At its best, Woodberry can push back against the negative forces. The enduring power of positive relationships with teachers and coaches, the sustaining and generative goodness and sheer fun that can come from your friendships, your willingness to embrace the high standards and counter-cultural values that have defined this place for generations… all of that creates meaning in a world that often lacks it. But as you know, Woodberry is no paradise. Some of you are homesick and lonely. Many of us grieve the loss of Cornell Strother, who selflessly gave us so much. And perhaps nothing right now saddens me more than to hear reports of ways some of you choose to tear down others in this community and beyond through insidious social media apps like YikYak. My best guess is that deep down inside, those who bully online suffer from a pervasive fear and a feeling like they’re not enough and they aren’t valued. 

Even the structure of Woodberry can feed the achievement beast. Grades matter here; test scores count. We strive to win and hate to lose. The single sanction for honor violations and drug and alcohol offenses feels like we celebrate justice over mercy. We laud production and work. One verb I often hear boys embrace is “grind,” and the implication is that we’re always working, always producing, surely worried that somehow we’re not enough. A boy in my class wrote to me just before Christmas that he had spent an “insane” amount of time writing a paper that he was turning in. Many of you work hard for the just dessert of college admission, but some seniors now know first-hand the pain and disappointment that can come from being denied or deferred. The writer of Ecclesiastes knew how futile failure can feel: “Then I considered all that my hands had done, and the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” 

So in the midst of this difficulty, where is the good news? Surely you’d like to hear some, especially given that we’re now in the thick of the challenging winter weeks when it’s cold and dark and the semiformal has been postponed and spring break feels like it’s a million years away. Fortunately there’s an abundance of good news in tonight’s readings. Our first reading from Isaiah reminds us that we are known by the God who created us: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Fear is a constant companion in our earthly life. I battle with it every day, and you likely do as well. Fear often blunts our energy and lulls us into not even trying so that our shortcomings won’t be known to others. This is no way to live in the present. You might be interested to know that 366 times in the Bible we are challenged to not fear, to trust in the God who knows us by name and loves us. 

The message of love flows forth in abundance in tonight’s Gospel lesson, and it is radical good news for our broken world and our broken selves. At the time of Jesus’s baptism we’re told by Luke that “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” We all yearn to have our fathers and mothers give us the message that we are enough, that just because we are theirs, they are well pleased. The good news tonight is that through the life of Jesus, through his crucifixion and resurrection and ascension, the dove of the Holy Spirit has descended into each of us, and we are the recipients of the free gift of abiding grace. That is the peace that passes all understanding, and that peace will fortify you for the path ahead. It will mark you as Christ’s own forever, always enough as a child of God, now free to live life with courage and bravery and joy and good cheer. 

Scripture tells us that you are enough. You are valued. You matter. When we decide as a school at the height of the pandemic to gather at St. Andrew’s as one corporate body, we send ourselves and each other a message. Your presence here tonight in this holy space shines light into the darkness. Your presence here after the Christmas break reminds me and your teachers and coaches that you matter to me and to them and that we are privileged to be here with you for the journey that lies ahead. With faith in these truths you might allow yourself to be freed to work hard, build your character, and take care of each other with a little more joy and a little more love for your fellow man in this new year. The good news is very simple, but very hard to grasp. Try it on: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Amen.

Doers of the Word

The following sermon was delivered by Headmaster Byron Hulsey ’86 on August 29, 2021 during the Opening of School service at St. Andrew’s Chapel.

On Thursday I traveled down to St. James’s Episcopal Church in Richmond for the funeral of Woodberry alumnus, Geoff Sisk. Geoff graduated in 1977 and served on our board of trustees. He was wise, kind, thoughtful, generous, and he loved the Tiger Nation. I miss him dearly. As I was waiting for the service to begin, I couldn’t help but notice the verse etched into the domed ceiling at the front of the church: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” That verse captures Geoff’s life. He was a doer, and he made those around him better.

So I was intrigued to learn that tonight’s lectionary readings include that famous verse from James, and therefore inspired to make the case to you that it’s a message we ought to reflect upon as we start the 133rd year in the life of the school at Woodberry Forest: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” Everywhere we turn we are blasted with talkers: social media, network talking heads, and politicians from both sides of the aisle come to mind. I was mildly depressed to learn earlier this summer that social media influencer is a burgeoning new profession, and I want to encourage you this evening to lean in a different direction and be more action-oriented this year at Woodberry. 

It’s undoubtedly true that most of us love to be entertained, and many of us like to talk. I’m sure that some of you feel like I talk way more than I should, and you may be right. But tonight’s readings call us to action, and urge us to dial back the chatter and banter and pontificating and instead embrace the actual good we can do to make our lives and the Woodberry community a better place for all. Later in the service we’ll recite the Boy’s Prayer. If you’re a new boy or a new member of the faculty, you’ll come to understand that the Boy’s Prayer is one of the essential artifacts of our life together. The language in that sacred prayer emphasizes the importance of action over the superficial ease of mere rhetoric and passive listening: stand for the hard right against the easy wrong; work hard and play fair; forgive those who are unkind to me; help others at some cost to myself; do a little good every day.

James urges all of us to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” We’re now thrown together for what promises to be an exciting, challenging, and demanding year together. 125 of you are here as new boys, and some of you have never been to our campus and some come from thousands of miles away. You’re getting to know each other and us, just as we are coming to know you. You’re being bombarded with the rules and expectations of the Blue Book, the Honor System and the Orange Book, and social expectations and practices that will surely seem unfamiliar. You are likely to suffer from ripples and even waves of disorientation and dislocation in the days and weeks ahead as you find your footing in our community. 

Here at Woodberry, the Blue Book exists to offer you a map for the path ahead, a tool to manage the disorientation and make sense of what at first may be confusing. The rhythm and the routine and the rules and expectations are important standards that will help you build discipline and toughness and attentiveness to details. If you follow the map, you’ll make your way forward, one day at a time. But if and when our eyes are forever anchored in the map and the letter of the law, we miss the spirit of the community and the bigger picture of what is up and what is out, and we even miss what might be on the side of the road. And for us at Woodberry, that bigger and broader culture is the web of life-giving relationships and friendships, the togetherness and the sacrifice, the acceptance and forgiveness and respect and love that course through this place and make you a Woodberry boy forever. It’s the substance of being invested in this place with the whole of your heart, and not just intrigued by the idea of Woodberry or the undeniable excitement of the bonfire and The Game you might have had as a middle schooler or the fun that you can have with your friends on Taylor or Turner or out on the lawn after dinner. 

New boy Sunday is an annual reminder for all of us alumni and old boys of what it felt like to start our journeys here, and it’s also the start of the school year for all of us. There is great promise and possibility, even as we acknowledge that there is so much we can’t control and much we lament and a good bit right now that we might even fear. The world beyond these gates is riven by conflict and division. The pandemic shows no sign of abating, even as vaccinations soften its worst effects. Terrorist attacks in Afghanistan complicate an ugly withdrawal of American forces. A massive hurricane lashes New Orleans, again. An earthquake in Haiti wreaks incalculable damage on an impoverished nation. Republicans and Democrats in our nation struggle to remember that we are all Americans first. In the midst of destruction and division, we’re called upon at Woodberry to renew our commitment to our values and ideals, the way we want to live together in community.

On the faculty our highest priority is to know, challenge, and love every boy in our care. We know from generations of experience that most of you want to be challenged most of the time, especially when you are known and cared for. That is how you feel respected and how we make clear to you that you matter. That works for most of you, most of the time. But if you’re like the boys we’ve had in the past, some of you–for a wide variety of reasons–will resist being known, challenged, and loved. Not long ago a young alumnus visited me in my office. When he was here, he worked very hard to be in the cool crowd. In his sixth form year his efforts bore fruit and he was named a cheerleader. For most of his last year he gave off a vibe of being totally done with Woodberry, eager to graduate and move on to a freer life in college. To be candid, he was gone in spirit months before he ultimately graduated. When he returned after his freshman year in college, he told me that he missed Woodberry far more than he could have ever imagined. I asked him why, and he replied that except for a few of his closest friends, “no one knows me anymore.”

This young man came back to Woodberry for that visit with his heart yoked to the place more than it had been before. Were he here now I’m certain that he’d urge you make the most of what we have right now, as it will not last. So my charge to you is simple: if you allow yourself to be known, to be truly known, to be challenged, really challenged, and to be loved, you’ll get more from this experience that you would ever imagine. You’ll thrive under the wider dome of our culture day after day as you grow into habits like working hard, building your character, and taking care of each other. You’ll take important steps necessary on your own journey to grow from being a needy boy with your own particular preferences to a man who can be counted on to take care of others, just as you are taken care of in your own times of need.  

Over time these practices become habits that contribute to the culture here and make our community better. It’s the genuine friendship that flows forth when we step up and speak up when someone’s being picked on and say kindly but straight-forwardly, “That’s not what we do here.” It’s when you see someone step up and step out and tell him later, “That was awesome. That’s what we do here.” It’s taking a stand against racism and bigotry, whenever and wherever it might emerge. It’s looking out for the Woodberry staff and respecting who they are and valuing their work, even when it’s possible to imagine that they’re invisible. It’s taking time to learn about someone else’s story, rather than retelling yours again and again. It’s being mindful of your interior life and giving thanks to God for leading you to the still waters of your soul when so much seems so disorienting in the world beyond. 

Most of all it’s living into the call to be doers of the word and not hearers only. May we this year live more fully into the ideals of the Boy’s Prayer and may we give thanks to God for the privilege and the opportunity to be trusted and to be, through our actions, a small but contributing part of a community that can make each of us better than we would ever be on our own. Amen.

A Good Shepherd

The Eulogy for Sam Byron Hulsey was given by Byron Hulsey on August 6, 2020, at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, TX.

On behalf of Isabelle, Ashley, Marc, Ben, and Claire, I want to thank you for joining us this morning as we give thanks to God for Sam’s extraordinary life and we share together as one body the sadness and the grief that comes with saying goodbye. I want to thank Father Pace and his staff at Trinity for graciously and generously hosting us and putting up with what must seem like an endless array of requests and questions. Some of you know that Sam annually revised his extensive and detail-laden funeral plans every Ash Wednesday. I thought the practice was a little morbid, but he was a planner, and goodness knows, we’ve had a year to get prepared for today’s service.

Sam shaped for himself a beautifully integrated life. He was at home everywhere, and there was no separation between his personal life and his professional life and no separation between how he treated the many men and women in his life. An ardent and lifelong admirer of the Royal Family, Sam would get up early to watch every minute of a royal wedding or royal funeral. He was delighted to meet the Queen and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace as part of the House of Bishops’ Lambeth meeting. And he was just as happy at the Malt Shop on highway 180 east of Weatherford or catching up with Mary Meredith, who cut his hair every four weeks for eighteen years when we lived in Lubbock, or connecting every morning with Neva at the Periwinkle gift shop on Deer Isle in Maine. He loved the ritziest restaurants in Manhattan and the newest exhibition at the Modern Museum of Art and he has lots of fun at the Weatherford rodeo. He was a fan of the valet service for his Cadillac at Rivercrest, and he got just as much joy out of a Meals on Wheels run with cousin Judy and gardening with Oscar at Selby Hill or going to see Jerry Jeff Walker at Billy Bob’s just after Christmas. He enjoyed the full regalia and the polished array of accoutrements like the pectoral cross and the fancy purple ring that came with being bishop, and he was just as happy in his raggedy pajamas in the early morning at Selby Hill hauling out corn for the deer and seed for the birds. 

Sam was a passionate reader and hand-wrote tens of thousands of notes and letters to people all over the world. He was a devotee of Thomas Merton and Carl Jung and Richard Rohr and Wendell Berry. And he faithfully read scores of hastily published and, to be truthful, monotonous church bulletins from all over the country. “Put me on your mailing list,” he’d say. Sam needed the print copy of the daily New York Times like most of us need early morning caffeine or a healthy breakfast to start the day. No other paper would satisfy him. He was snobby about his reading, and at the same time he devoured every issue of the Canadien Record from Northwest Texas. Sam subscribed to the New Yorker, and, without even a trace of shame or irony, to People magazine. He loved the opera in Fort Worth, and once he took my wife, Jennifer, to see “White Chicks” at the Weatherford Cinema. They giggled and giggled at what he described as the “nastiness.” One of Sam’s defining qualities was that he was high brow, middle brow, and low brow all at once. That one exceptional gift resulted in a genuine friend list longer than anyone I’ve ever known. His hospice nurse, Cheryl, texted me the day Sam died and wrote, “He was my best friend and I am really going to miss him. He gave me so much good advice and joy. It’s like losing my dad all over again.”

I’m not sure anyone knew Sam better than our mother, Linda. They were a team. She boosted him up when the parishioners dragged him down, and she kept him grounded when his ego got a little carried away. I once found a folder from his yearly Advent trips to Weston Priory in Vermont. She’d go with him, and as they drove away after the week-long retreat, they’d talk and she or he would take notes on all the monks they met and all the details from their lives. Then he’d go over that folder every year just before the next trip so that he was ready to pick up where he’d left off.

Early in their marriage, Mom and Dad were flying to LaGuardia for a big trip to New York City. Mom was seated on the aisle, Dad in his clerical collar in the middle, and a very attractive young woman on the window. He immediately began visiting with her, much to Mom’s irritation. They chatted and chatted the whole way, while Mom read a book or pretended to nap. Upon the descent, the plane ran into turbulence and the passengers were anxious, bouncing around uncomfortably. At one particular point, the woman on the aisle grabbed Dad’s wrist and said, “Father, please pray for us.” Mom leaned forward and made her first and only contribution to the conversation: “It’s not going to do you a damn bit of good.” Sam gently pushed back, “Well, Linda, it might.” Sam and Linda were good for each other. 

When Mom was stricken with Alzheimers, she depended on Dad for almost everything and he delivered. One day he took her to get her hair done, but a trip like that with Dad always turned into countless stops to the post office and then to friends and acquaintances who might need a quick visit or be interested in a book or a cut-out article from the newspaper. On and on the morning dragged, and Mom was getting more and more agitated. She just wanted to go home. After chatting with someone on the front porch, Sam came bounding back to the car, climbed in, fastened his seat belt, but before he could crank up the car, Mom, even in her depleted state, came forth with a zinger: “Who do you think you are, Jesus’ little friend?” Taken aback, Sam recovered and said, “Well, yes, Linda. That’s exactly who I am.” 

Part of being Jesus’ little friend was accepting and loving and celebrating all of us for who we are, not trying to turn any one of us into who he might otherwise want us to be. This completely authentic belief animated his early support for women to serve as priests in the Episcopal Church and the wide-ranging progressive beliefs that ran counter to more conservative doctrine. Sam treasured the servant-leadership style of the good shepherd, and in confirmation sermons he would tell the confirmands that Jesus’ great command was to “follow me,” not “obey me.” I remember once when I was six or seven that Ashley upset me over this or that nonsense. I may have been crying. Sam said definitively and lovingly, “Be careful with Byron. He is sensitive.” This was the 1970s, and the established culture conditioned dads to teach their sons to be tough and stoic and push down their feelings. But Sam made clear that sensitivity in a boy is a gift to be nurtured, not a disability of which to be ashamed. Ashley’s a really good person, so I don’t know if she needed to hear what he said in that moment, but as Sam’s son, I needed to hear that in my momentary fragility, I was ok and that I was loved. As a father, Dad modeled as close a manifestation of unconditional love as Ashley and I have ever known. 

Sam told me just over a year ago that he had seventeen godchildren. I bet there are closer to one hundred or more who think of him as their godfather. It’s because he knew us and he loved us and affirmed our gifts in hand-written notes, quick phone calls, and long car trips through Northwest Texas. I’d love to know how many men and women he married. In his homilies, he’d often quote Thomas Merton: “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” 

Because the world, and even his beloved Episcopal church, is often disintegrated and broken and separated and bifurcated into either/or dichotomies, Sam’s integrated life gave him a lot of pain. It’s pain that he embraced as the necessary cost of living a good life. He saw our son, Ben, as a soulmate, and it mystified Jennifer as a young mother when Sam once said, “Oh, how I love Ben. And he’s going to have a lot of pain.” What he meant was that a good life comes with pain and when we walk into the world’s pain in service to others, we live a good life. 

The last time we saw Sam was in July 2020 at Selby Hill. We had no idea he’d die less than three weeks later, but because of COVID and his cancer we knew it was likely the last time we’d see him. Saying goodbye was brutal. We were out at the car for the farewell. Claire gave him a big hug. We all did. And then Claire needed more, so she went back for one more hug. He told her with complete conviction, “Claire, always remember that I am on your team.” Sam’s gift to us was to make it clear that he was on the team of everyone here and everyone he knew and loved. That’s why we miss him.

The evening Sam died, Jennifer went to bed early and I checked in on Claire. We were both teary and I asked if she needed any help getting to sleep. She said no and gave me a hug and said through her tears, “Dad, I’ll always be on Sam’s team.” Claire got the message, and given what our broken world needs, I hope that we might all seek to be on Sam’s team, too. Amen.