A final service at Old St. Anne's Church for the seniors

Daniel T. Roach
Chapel Remarks
Old St. Anne’s Church
May 18, 2008

This tradition of opening and closing the School year with Sunday services at Old St. Anne’s has given me the opportunity to talk to the entire student community at St. Andrew’s before we head into the various activities and ceremonies of Commencement week. And, of course, this is my last chance to talk to the VI Form in this context before they graduate next Sunday.

We have had a good year together, and each one of you has contributed to the flourishing of the community, from the youngest and newest among you (our September service here might have been a time of particular nervousness and anxiety for you) to the seniors who prepare to leave St. Andrew’s next week and who now see our community as a second home.

We talk a lot as seniors and faculty these days about whether underformers really understand, embrace and own the ethos of St. Andrew’s. What we mean is that, like Sam Fathers in Faulkner’s great story, The Bear, you have to relinquish certain things, superficially valuable things, to get St. Andrew’s. You have to learn what the intellectual life is all about, what happens when you give yourself completely, not strategically, to the life of the mind. You have to relinquish technology and go outside and meet and talk to people, and be alone, and play and connect. You have to trust, love and connect with teachers and not only learn from them but inspire them as well. You have to give up the ways of the alcohol and drug culture, the materialistic culture, the mindless culture. You have to reach, engage, analyze and argue. You have to embrace complexity, challenges and suffering. You have to be resilient. You have to take risks.

It takes time to feel and live the ethos, but because our seniors have endured it, explored it, expressed it and protected it, the spirit will be passed down.

Mr. Hammond pointed out to me this spring that in the course of a four-year St. Andrew’s career, you as students and we as a faculty live with over 500 students—that’s how big the School is over a career. This particular group of some 350 students and teachers will never quite gather this way again. Departing teachers and seniors will return to campus, but this particular combination of people is unique, distinctive.

The VI Form leaves having known 400-500 students in their career, having connected seamlessly with faculty and staff, having examined, enlarged, expanded and transformed their notions of community, success, happiness, ethics, diversity, faith and life.

Our seniors leave us knowing that they protected, supported, inspired this mystical spirit that is St. Andrew’s, that belief, conviction and commitment to being the antithesis of the private, enclosed, smug, exclusive boarding school, that sense that extraordinary things can happen when people work together in a spirit of good will, optimism, joy and idealism.

You have attended many classes, written take-home tests, lab reports and papers. You have performed in concerts, recitals and plays; you have played many games and held many important conversations with teachers and fellow students; you have fallen in love with the sheer beauty of the St. Andrew’s campus.

But through it all, most importantly, you have discovered that the pursuit of knowledge, the living out of one’s dreams and aspirations are ultimately not about you at all, for you have learned that your calling is to create, insist upon and protect a world for those who follow you, not only at St. Andrew’s, but in the world. You live, think and dream so that children across America and in the world can live in peace, can live in a world that is sustainable, equitable, compassionate and human. You live to fight for education and health care and opportunity for those less fortunate, those marginalized by our national and world society. You live to perform quiet, authentic acts of love, generosity and compassion. You live to change the world by living in the world, by suffering in the world, by engaging in the world, by opening your lives to the world.

You have changed and inspired St. Andrew’s, and your contributions will live on here forever, as students you many never know replicate and imitate the way you lived, the way you expressed humanity, compassion and love, the way you performed, played, acted and thought.

You probably felt a bit lonely, frightened, insecure and unsure of yourself when you arrived on campus for the first time as a student. And you may paradoxically feel many of the same emotions Sunday as you leave us as students for the last time. But keep in mind two concepts if you feel this way: St. Andrew’s will always be here for you; and because of St. Andrew’s, you are prepared and called to do remarkable things in the world.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” 2 Corinthians 13:11-13