It is good to see all of you this evening for our Annual Parent Dinner.

 

In past years, my approach to these Parent Dinner remarks could best be described as “ambitious,” as I’ve taken up some rather complex issues (and taken up considerable time and ink sharing my thoughts about them).

 

You’ve always been a wonderfully patient and generous audience. But I’m going to endeavor this year to do something a bit shorter and simpler, though I hope still meaningful.

 

I have no grand thesis this year, no pronouncements on weighty topics, just two stories—both of which spoke to me and feel connected to one another, in ways I hope might become clearer as I share them with you.

 

The first story is about a recent experience I had while attending the board meetings of the International Boys’ Schools Coalition (IBSC), a group of schools from around the world that St. Albans helped to found in the 1990s, dedicated to the advocacy of boys education and to supporting those who have devoted their lives to the education and formation of boys.

 

During the board meetings, several of us began discussing research and writings about boys education that had made a lasting impact on us. And at one point, the conversation turned to the work of Dr. Adam Cox, who had been commissioned by the IBSC several years ago to conduct a global school-based research project, Locating Significance in the Lives of Boys. During the research, he visited twenty schools in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. He was one of the first scholars to interview students worldwide about how they find meaning and purpose in their lives.

 

In one of Dr. Cox’s books, On Purpose Before Twenty, there is a chapter titled “What I Learned,” in which he shares insights from hundreds of conversations with boys and a lifetime devoted to understanding how they best flourish. There’s so much truth he captures here about our work parenting and educating boys that I’d like to share some excerpts with you, in the hope that you will find his reflections as meaningful and inspiring as I have:

 

Dr. Cox writes:

 

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Such a wonderful set of insights into the minds and hearts of the boys we are blessed to parent and to teach—and a reminder of the gift it is to work with them at such a formative period in their lives.

 

I mentioned at the outset that I had two stories to share, which feel connected in some important way. So here is my second story, one that is more personal.

 

I woke up on a recent Sunday, and I wasn’t feeling my best. I had been working on projects and possibilities here at school that felt a bit stuck. And some other things had been weighing on me.

 

I took that doubt and heaviness of spirit with me into church later that morning. I did not realize it was a day, one that our church holds every few months, when infants are baptized during the church service. There was one baby, a beautiful little boy, who was in front of the congregation with his mom and dad waiting for the baptismal ceremony. He was crying. And his parents were doing their best to get him calmed down. But to no avail. He was unsettled. And something in his tears seemed to carry or express the unsettledness that had fallen over me that morning.

 

Then an extraordinary thing happened. When it was the young boy’s turn to be baptized, the parents handed the still-crying child over to the pastor. At that very moment, an absolute stillness and calm came over the young boy. He stopped crying. I have seen hundreds of baptisms but never something like this. It was truly as if a force from beyond our world, in an act of astonishing grace, reached out, took hold of the boy, and said: “It’s okay, little fellow. I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.” And for that brief, luminous moment, everyone in that congregation believed it, too.

As our boys grow older, they don’t always let us know how they are feeling in such vocal and expressive ways. But they still seek our assurance that we’ve got them, that it’s going to be okay. As Dr. Cox noted, boys are ready to serve, to lead, to thrive when they are surrounded by families, friends, teachers, and, yes, dogs, who know them, believe in them, are honest with them, and love them, who help them take up the big questions they have, opening their hearts to moral and spiritual possibilities larger than themselves.

And it is this, more than anything else, that forms the covenant at the heart of this school. After seven years as headmaster, after many speeches and letters, crises and controversies, adventures and misadventures, strategic plans and strategic retreats, what I am left with, in humility, is this: the image of that little boy in front of the congregation, unsure of himself and the world, but finding peace and purpose when delivered into the hands of a loving adult, a loving community, and a loving God.

 

It is this promise that led those who came before us to create this school, that led you as families to entrust your sons to our care. And it reminds us, especially in moments of doubt, of the ultimate horizon of our hope.

 

Thank you for being such a thoughtful and gracious audience. And thank you for the gift of working with your sons.