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.
What Matters Most 