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A Chapel Talk on Resilience



The following is my first Chapel Talk of this 2020-2021 school year:

In the childrens’ book "A Perfectly Messed-Up Story" by Patrick McDonnell, little Louie, the main character, just wants to merrily skip through his story singing happily, but he keeps getting interrupted by messes—jelly stains on the pages, peanut butter, fingerprints. He just can't believe it! Little Louie’s story is not going the way he’d hoped.

Little Louie's struggles remind me of the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus who wrote that “he who learns must suffer.” Learning is change, and change isn’t easy. Even in normal times, it requires some degree of discomfort. During this pandemic, it’s compounded ten-fold—for all of us. 

Resilience is that ability to bounce back, to swim not sink, to bend not break in the face of significant, sudden or unexpected challenge or change, hardship or struggle—like a tree in strong wind or shock absorbers on a bumpy ride. It demands a strong core, and a thick skin, and requires the effective management of emotion with the apt employment of reason. Forged from our mission’s call for Saint David's boys to develop ‘a strong sense of self-confidence’—a strong core—resilience, our school-wide theme this year, reminds us that to learn and to grow we must sometimes sacrifice or suffer, but to prevail, all we need to do is stay goal focused and use reason to work our way through.


All this reminds me of our school's namesake "the young David." In the well-known Bible story of David and Goliath, King Saul and his army were once again fighting the Philistines. The Philistines were a warlike people who lived along the Mediterranean coast just west of Israel. They continually raided Israelite territory and tried to expand their national borders to include Israel’s western hill country. They had a tremendous advantage over Israel because they controlled the “iron industry.” Most of the iron that was mined, smelted, and used for weapons, was controlled by the Philistines.

During this particular encounter, the Philistines appeared to have another advantage over Israel. They had a giant. Goliath was over nine feet tall. Not only was he huge, but the armor he wore protected him from most harm and he constantly bragged about this and goaded the Israelites. Goliath was an experienced warrior; David was the exact opposite, a shepherd boy. Goliath was huge; David was small. The giant wore armor; the boy refused to wear armor. The warrior carried a sword, a spear, and a shield; the shepherd carried a staff, a sling, and five smooth stones. Goliath scoffed at David's faith; David trusted the God of his fathers. When no one else would step forward to fight Goliath, David did and when the dust settled, it was clear to all that the superhuman strength of the giant Goliath was no advantage over the calm confidence of the young boy with great faith. 

Against all odds, David defeated Goliath. As we admire his courage, his resilience, we must remember that it was David's strong core and thick skin, his effective management of emotion with his apt employment of reason; it was his faith, hope, and optimism that enabled him to overcome the giant. 


We can learn from David. We can take that same courage and resilience—that self-confidence, inner strength, faith, hope and optimism that he used to defeat Goliath, to defeat our own giant. Things are not "normal" in our Covid-19 world… and they might not be for some time to come. 

We aren’t coming back to school and picking up where we left off. We have to learn differently now. We have to adapt. We have to think our way through multiple messes. We have to have faith that this too, shall pass. Our weapons in this challenging time are now our masks, social distancing, and hand washing. Our supporting army is made up of our passionate teachers and caring parents. The hope and optimism we share come from knowing that all those who came before us, who are a part of the past that has shaped us, successfully faced the giants of their time… and like Little Louie, we too, I am sure of it, will come to realize that at the end of our story, it’s ok if things don’t go as planned. We just have to reason our way through. It’s going to be a good story either way.

Ut viri boni sint. 


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