The Power to Heal or Destroy

This is my address to students at assembly in our second week of school.

Good morning! 

You each have great power. You each have the power to heal, or destroy.

“Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” I think we’re told that as kids to help us brush off unkind comments, but the fact is, that statement is an absolute lie.  Physical wounds heal quickly. But when someone tears us down with gossip, or unkind comments, it hurts for a long, long time. 

Three stories from my past:

I’m a Notre Dame guy—graduated there twice, had three children go there, both of my in-law children have degrees there, and I have two nephews and one niece there now. For the most part, I am proud of the university and my association with it. But there was one thing about my freshman year which was shameful. 

Each dorm in my day would sponsor “SYR” dances, which stands for “Screw Your Roommate.” The idea was that your roommate set you up for a blind date, and he could either set you up for someone you were excited about, or "screw you" by doing the opposite. This was before Facebook, so we used a student body picture directory for these purposes--we called it a “dog book," which is terrible!  I remember one freshman girl had a very poor picture made, and that poor girl would get 15-20 phone calls whenever a dorm was hosting a dance.  How devastating for her, knowing she was the gag date! How cruel! Can you imagine being that girl, listening to laughter on the other end of the phone, called over and over?  I can’t imagine she’s ever fully recovered from this loutish, misogynist behavior. Unkind acts, unkind words,  destroy people!  

A second example. There were two sophomore girls in my previous school who were in an ugly spat over a boy. One decided to orchestrate a smear campaign about the other, telling false “secrets” about her sexual life, writing “slut” on school desks where she sat, scrawling “for a good time call _____ “ and putting her number on the bathroom walls. People talked about her behind her back, gossiping cruelly. I remember a meeting with her and her mother, with the girl weeping, and the mother sadly withdrawing her child from the school. It was horrible. Gossip destroys. 

A third, more positive example: When I was in high school, there was a senior classmate—let’s call him Bill, but that’s not his real name—who was slightly effeminate, with mannerisms and a gait that reminded people of a woman. He endured countless homosexual slurs and loutish treatment as a result. One day, as he was walking across campus to class, someone pinned a “Kick me” sign on his back, unbeknownst to him, and boys kept coming up to him and kicking him and running away, laughing. Two sophomores kicked him so hard he dropped his books, which scattered across the hallway. But as they tried to run away, a senior member of the football team, having seen what had happened,  grabbed one of the boys, pinned him against the wall, and said simply and sternly: “Bill is a senior. He’s one of us. You do that to him, you do it to us. Do you understand?” “Uh..yes,” the sophomore said meekly. “Pick up his books,” the football player said, and the boy complied, handing Bill’s books back to him. The football player then walked with Bill to class.  

I don’t know what happened to Bill, or where he lives now. But I am quite sure he remembers “He’s one of us” as if it were yesterday. Yes, words can destroy. But they can also heal and build people up.  

Scripture says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." (Ephesians 4:29) 

We are only in our third year as a school, and our first as a complete high school. It’s been a good start, but who we are has not yet been decided. We're still creating ourselves. Our reputation, the kind of school we become, will be up to you. Will we be a school that tears each other down, that wounds our classmates and puts ourselves first, or will we be a school which is kind, where words are used to heal, and to build each other up?

You have the power to choose either path for us. 

Welcome New Students!

These are my remarks to new students of St. Michael as we enter our third year as a school.

August 17, 2018

Good morning, and welcome to St. Michael Catholic High School for new student orientation! 

I am your principal, Mr. Weber, and it really is a pleasure to welcome you to St. Michael this morning, for this, our 3rd year as a school and our first as a complete 9-12th grade. All of you will be able to say that to your children and grand-children one day—that you entered St. Michael in its first year as a complete high school.  

I want today to be fun. But also, as you begin your careers here, I'd like to speak to you in a serious way, as young adults, because that is what you're becoming. 

St. Michael wants you to become "scholars, leaders and disciples of Jesus Christ." Let me talk about what each of those means. 

a.“Scholars”—That doesn’t mean we think you’re all going to get 4.0’s here and graduate with scholarships to Havard, Yale or Notre Dame. It means that you use the gifts God has given you to do your best, to work hard in your classes, to do your homework, to be the best you can be. For some of you, yes, that might mean Notre Dame—as an alum, I’d love it if some of you set your sites to go there. But for ALL of you, it means effort. Effort, how hard we work,  is something completely within our control. We’re going to ask you to do, on average, 60-90 minutes of homework each night.. Can you get by with less? Probably, but your grades won’t be what they should be. We’re going to count homework and classwork somewhere between 25-40% of your grade. That’s a pretty big piece of it, almost as much as tests. If you get zeroes in HW, your grade suffers. Why do we do that? Because EFFORT matters. GRIT matters. Hard work matters. 

Let me ask you to do something—Raise your hand if you have never made anything less than a B on your report card? Many of you, right! I graded every single placement test, I reviewed your grades, and in fact, you’re a smart group. You’ve had a lot of success! You should be rightfully proud of that. But now you’re in high school, those grades no long matter. Colleges aren’t going to ask you to show them your grades from CTK, or Fairhope Middle School, or St. Patrick. The only grades they care about is your high school grades, posted on what we call a transcript, which is a summary of all your grades in all your classes during your 4 years of HS. 

Just before I walked down here, I had our school software print out the transcript for a random freshman. I could have picked any freshman, because it prints out the same thing. It's a completely blank piece of paper. If you’ve been a terrible student with pretty low grades up until this point in your life, you have exactly the same GPA right now as your classmate who has never made anything less than a B. You have a chance to start over if you’ve been lazy, and a chance to re-prove yourself if you’ve done well. From this point forward, you’ll be putting grades on this blank paper. And mathematically, the grades you make as freshmen count exactly the same as the grades you make as juniors or seniors. You begin writing on this blank page on Monday. 

—So we think if you work hard in your classes here, you will indeed be a “scholar.”

b. “leaders” —That might mean that one of you is the student body president in your senior year. It might mean you are team captains on your athletic teams as juniors or seniors, or presidents of clubs here. Or that you’re part of our student government, which we call the House Council (president, vice-president). All of those things are awesome, and we encourage you to strive for them. But what “leaders” mean for all of you—whether you hold office or not, captaincy or not, is that you are courageous. That you stand up for good things. That you lead your peers in a positive direction. That if you’re in a group and the group begins gossiping about a classmate, that you change the subject, or walk away. That you protect each other’s reputation. That if your peers are tempted to do something wrong, like drinking, or vaping, or smoking, that through your example, you discourage that. 

We have a lot of cowards in our world today, and I’m not talking primarily about people your age. I’m talking about people in my generation. Adults. Too often we say, “that’s his life, not mine, I should mind my own business ” and then wash our hands of responsibility for each other, like Pontius Pilate, saying that Jesus’ death was on someone else’s hands, not his.  But what good people do is we take responsibility for each other. We care about our friends, we care about our classmates. We care about our school. The world needs leaders. Be courageous enough to lead. 

c. “disciples of Jesus Christ”— Use these years in high school to draw closer to Christ. High school years can be stressful, sometimes full of hurt—the betrayal of a close friend, a bad grade, being interested in someone but that someone not interested in you. Returning students have heard me say this before, but the high school years can be tough at times. Lonely. Adults are fond of saying “These are the best years of your life.” These ARE great years, but they’re not the best years. Often, they’re tough.  Draw closer to Jesus. He’ll heal that hurt. He’ll give you courage. He’ll help you with the decisions you need to make about college, about friends, about situations in your family. Bring him your stress, thank him for your successes, share your joy and pain with him. Pray for each other. Pray for things that you’re worried about. If you do, God will give you great joy and happiness. That’s what he wants for all of us! 

So scholars, leaders and disciples—that’s what we want for you. That’s what we pray you’ll become. Have the courage to embrace that for yourself, too. 

A few other tips:

Two students, which do you think is happier? Student #1 beats everyone to the parking lot each day. He’s traveling down Higbee Road at 3:12, first to get home. Student #2 plays on the football team, goes to practice until 5:30 or 6. Come September 15, who is happier? (ask. Ask why).  If you’re an athlete, great—try out for teams. If you’re a musician, fantastic, throw yourself into our band or choral program. If you like to Debate, join the Debate team. Don’t be the guy who runs out the door at 3:10 at dismissal each day to go home. If you do, HS will be incredibly boring. You won’t have friends. Join stuff. It’s the best way to make friends. (We’ll have a club day when you can sign up for things soon). 

Get sleep. When we were kids we never wanted to take naps. Hated to sleep in. Surest proof you’re a teenager is when sleep begins to sound really cool. 8-10 hours. If you’re waking up at 6 in the morning, you’d need to go to bed by 10.  Can you get by with less? Yep, but you won’t be 100%. This is a medical fact, not an opinion. Best thing you can do for a test is get good sleep. And remember that we have body clocks, too. Our bodies like routines, and get all screwed up when we break routines. If you go to bed at 3 a.m. on Friday night and Saturday night wake up at noon each day, you’re going to have a hard time going to sleep at 10 and waking up at 6 on Monday. It’ll take you a day or two to readjust back. 

Vary it up. Don’t just do one thing over and over. If you love soccer, great, play soccer, but don’t play JUST soccer. Play some other sports. Get good at music, go for A’s in classes, do different things. Renaissance man, doing many different type things. Makes life fun. Gives us some balance. Keeps things from being stale. 

Bring your fears, hopes, anxieties to God. Pray to him. Go to Church. Pray at school masses. Use our chapel. 

Last point: President Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. “ I’ve emphasized that you are all here in this first year as a complete 9-12 school. In a real way, then, you are part of the founding of this school. I know it’s natural to be thinking about just yourselves when you start something brand new, but I hope you’ll also be thinking about the impact you can have on this place over the course of your 4 years here—or if you’re a transfer, during the years you are with us. How can YOU make this place better? What can YOU add to the school that makes people say, “Wow, that’s an excellent school”?  

Because make no mistake, now that you’re Cardinals, now that you wear the uniform, or put on a team jersey, outsiders will judge the quality of this school by your actions—their only window into this school might be through you. What will they see? How will your actions represent the rest of us? What will people think about us? What kind of school will we be? Believe it or not, you’ll have more to say about that than I will. I’ll be interested to see what kind of school you’ll make it.