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.
What Matters Most 