The Final Chapel STEVE DEUPREE SAYS GOODBYE
Retiring aſter twenty-three years of service to St. Anne's-Belfield School, faculty member Steve Deupree was selected by the Class of 2011 to deliver the sermon at their final Chapel on the morning of their graduation.
I
am humbled standing in front of you today. I am graduating today too (only it took me twenty-three years to get out of the 8th
grade!) and like you am full
of mixed emotions and memories. As my last official function at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, I can’t help flashing back to all the times I have stood in this space. Chapel is my favor- ite part of this school but this space is filled with so much more. It’s where we as a com- munity come to reflect, and have fun, and rant, and discuss community issues. It’s where good news…and bad news …is announced. I personally have learned more from you guys in this auditorium than I can express. I have loved my part in this community. It has fed me, loved me…even, kicked me in the butt when I needed it. From what I have shared with you in the past and from all I have been through on the planet, I do not want to mince words when I tell you that I love you. I love this School. I love Chapel.
Chapel for me exemplifies the very expression of the phrase in our school’s philosophy state- ment: “…where high expectations for both their personal and intellectual lives are com- plemented by the school's commitment to
I have known some of you since you were four years old; some from Lower School; most of you from Middle School; some from traveling together; a smattering of you since you have come to the Upper School; and the rest of you I have gotten to know vicariously through re- ports of your success in the classroom, on the fields, and around town. I particularly listen to seniors because you are the end of the pro- cess we call secondary education. You know that the process has no ending. STAB is just a piece of an ongoing adventure.
I was on a committee to study the senior year a while back and the essential question that guided us was, “What does a St. Anne’s- Belfield School graduate look like – what has he or she been exposed to?" If you read the entire philosophy statement, you will find all that a graduate should embody. You should be the embodiment of St. Anne’s-Belfield School and that’s why I listen to you.
Your diversity as a class was clearly reflected in your thoughts about the spiritual dimension of life as expressed in the School’s philosophy. I genuinely wanted to hear your thoughts on what, I feel, is an essential quality in your edu-
Chapel sermons on very positive notes.
So, what is this spiritual dimension? Before I try to answer that, I want to go back to what Mrs. Peatross read – the two great command- ments. Bear with me for a mini history lesson, but those two commandments are found in some form in almost every major religion. Te thought behind them is very universal. Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself. If you think deeply about the two, they are vir- tually the same. Tink more about them and you begin to realize that you really can’t do one without the other. Tink of God as cause and man as effect. Man is the expression of God just as the sunlight is the expression of the sun. Cause and effect. Te sun without the light is not the sun and the sunlight with- out the sun is an impossibility. So it is with God and man. Te two cannot be separated.
Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself. If you think deeply about the two , they are virtually the same. Tink more about them and you begin to realize that you really can’t do one without the other.
nurturing students in the spiritual dimension of life.” (As an aside to parents and guests, I had asked the seniors to give me feedback on this part of the St. Anne’s-Belfield philosophy statement.) In your feedback to me, you right- ly related the spiritual dimension to morality. Te question in my mind this morning is how we become morally better.
10 – PERSPECTIVES/SUMMER 2011
cation here. It is rare in this day and age that any school would try to address this. In your diversity, your answers ranged all over the place – as it should be – from one extreme, and I quote, “being a farce” all the way to “the most neglected aspect of my experience here” and “something I have learned to love.” I know from your experiences here that several of you (Courtney, Kate, Benita to name a few) gave
Te spiritual dimension is the effect of Spirit, God. Te number one thought that echoed in your reflections had to do with morality. Morality is what we understand about God. If I could boil that down to a simpler concept, it would be this: We can love our fellow man more by loving God most. But, as your reflec- tions bear out, so few of us link morality or the spiritual aspect of our lives to God. It’s as if uprightness and honorable behavior can exist on their own. We forget or ignore the fact that they are the ef- fect of our understand- ing of God. We tend to leave God out of the
equation. Tink of God as the North Star. It’s something we aim for. By following the North Star, our course – wherever we are going – is surer. Our course is the effect of our devotion to the North Star. Our course today is im- proved morality. Without God, we are adriſt, aimless. Our progress is uncertain.
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