The last day of the academic year saw the annual Leavers' Service in the Parish Church, followed by the Leavers' Ball in the Prize Giving marquee later that evening. It was an occasion that marked the Class of 2024 completing their time at Shiplake College though they will continue their connection to the College by becoming Old Vikings. As one door shuts, another opens, and we look forward to seeing how our latest cohort of Old Vikings will do in this next stage of their lives.
At the Leavers' Service each year, it is customary for a leaving member of staff to give the valedictum - or farewell address - and this year it was Mr Alcock, who is retiring after working at Shiplake for 27 years, who gave this heartful and exceptional speech:
I’ve been dreading doing this valedictum - the Latin word meaning ‘farewell’.
What can you possibly say that will land well with young people over 40 years younger than you? Your career and your lives are about to open up, all kinds of opportunities, adventures and challenges lie in wait, and the world you step into is unrecognizable from the 1980s when I left school. Of course, the music was better, the cars were cooler, and the only technology we thought about was getting something called a microwave.
In many ways, Emily Over’s Boat Club dinner speech sums up exactly how to live life well. Her speech exemplified that other famous Latin motto, 'carpe diem' or 'seize the day' - taking the time to enjoy and appreciate life, not just rushing onto the next thing.
So here is a question: how do you become truly great?
- Win Henley?
- Win an Olympic medal?
- Discover a cure for cancer?
- Invent something life changing?
- Academic success?
- What does that look like?
- Fame, fortune, achievements, power, popularity?
In Shakespeare’s famous comedy 12th Night, a play I’ve taught at A-level and produced here at Shiplake, the character Malvolio, a butler, in a letter purported to be from his Lady but written by a fellow servant is incited to believe she is in love with him: this appeals to his vanity and the letter contains the immortal phrase:
‘Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some have greatness thrust upon them.’
So, do you want to be great? What legacy will you leave? Who decides if you made the grade for greatness? Jesus gave us an invaluable but utterly paradoxical counter intuitive insight:
‘Anyone wants to be first he or she must be the last of all, and the servant of all.’
Perhaps the hardest thing I’ve learned about being a follower of Jesus has been just that - being humble.
Lots of advice these days is based upon the phrase ‘be yourself’ but the older you get, the more you realise just how misguided this can be. The advice to ‘be yourself’ isn’t helpful when we realise how flawed or imperfect we are.
So, all I feel able to offer you is based on what I’ve found out, most of it the hard way. Three things that have hopefully helped me to grow and become more like Jesus.
Listening.
Listening means giving your whole attention to the other. Listening means not interrupting, not filling the silence after a few seconds, but waiting. Active listening means making eye contact, being patient, and giving them all the time they need.
Listening means being curious and not judgemental. It means putting others first. Learning to be a listener, not just a talker, will change the way you see yourself and the world.
Silence.
In a Chapel talk a while ago, I used the visual symbol of a bottle of muddy water suggesting that our lives get so busy that our inner beings are churning, full of thoughts and feelings that need calming.
The only way to deal with this is daily quietness, prayer, and meditation of at least 10 minutes. It gives time for us to process our day, our feelings, and lets us get in touch with our inner selves and our inner voice. It restores our sense of who we are.
It may also become a window to that world we are sometimes afraid to explore - the spiritual well of the soul, maybe knowing that God is there, and he loves us. A colleague recently shared with me how when driving to work, he was trying to pray when he experienced a sudden feeling of total warmth and a great sense of peace, which he could only attribute to an encounter with God.
Love and kindness.
I know this sounds obvious, but this is not just about being nice to our friends and family.
When Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for a drink at a well out in the desert away from her village, he broke every taboo going at the time - gender, sexuality, and race. When his disciples found him, they were horrified. Like Jesus, we need to be prepared to meet, listen to, and support those who may profoundly disagree with us, not naturally socialise with, and listen to them, not judging, trying to see things as they do.
So how do you become great? How do you change the world?
I think it’s about changing yourself before you change others. As Jesus memorably said:
‘Take the plank out of your eye, before trying to remove the speck in someone else's!’
Start with yourself and while it can be painful process, it is important to accept honest loving criticism, and to be humble enough to change.
I can’t do any better than end with these words that echo the words of the famous prayer attributed to St Francis of Assisi, a city in Italy where I am going with my wife in September for her sabbatical. I pray that you too discover that prayer ultimately is at the heart of all we do, think, and are:
‘Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there is doubt true faith in You
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there's sadness ever joy
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul.’
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