On Monday, our School Chaplain, Mr Davies, delivered a powerful and inspiring sermon to the school community, encouraging reflection on how small acts of kindness can make a big difference. We hope his words resonated with all pupils and inspire them to spread kindness in their everyday lives.

You can read the sermon below:

This is, of course, the traditional Harvest reading where historically the church has celebrated bringing in the harvest, an extremely important time of year even now, though most of us are not involved in it the way we used to be in times gone by. And of course, no doubt since prep or primary school the metaphorical meaning of this parable has been explained to you as sowing seeds of love, of kindness. The ground is an analogy for your heart, how hard is it? Is it like the rocky ground where the seeds of Jesus’ teachings just bounce off and you are unkind? Possibly. But as you grow older you realise the consequences of that, you cannot expect to experience kindness if you do not give it, you reap what you sow to use another farming metaphor. You have no idea how much a small act of kindness can affect someone. Especially is that person is suffering in other aspects of their lives. Many years ago now I told the story of Kyle, and how one boy’s act of kindness completely changed his life. Some of you in the 5^th form and above might recognise it, but it really is important that you juniors listen to this. It is a true story and I am going to tell it in the words of that boy who did the act of kindness that changed a life.

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd.” I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, “Those guys are idiots. They really should get lives.”

He looked at me and said, “Hey thanks!” There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude. I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had only just joined the school.

He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I asked him if he wanted to play football on Saturday with me and my friends. He said yes.

We hung all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him. And my friends thought the same of him. Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, “you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books every day!”

He just laughed and handed me half the books.

Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship. Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn’t me having to get up there and speak.

Graduation day came and I could see that Kyle was nervous about his speech. So told him not to worry, you’ll be great. He looked at me gratefully and smiled.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began: “Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach… but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story.”

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met. He had planned to take his own life over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mum wouldn’t have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile. “Thankfully, I was saved. With one random act of kindness, my friend saved me from doing the unthinkable.”

Just reflect on that for a moment.

It doesn’t even need to be that serious to have an affect on people. Last weekend I had something happen in my life where something I did almost 40 years ago affected someone in a way I could not have imagined. In 1986, I was serving in a Naval base called HMS Drake, it is where the Naval Dockyard is run from in Plymouth. At that time we were selling an aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, to the Indian navy. About 1000 Indian sailors were billeted with us in HMS Drake, and we became friends with many of them. I felt sorry for one in particular, he was a Christian called George from Kerala in India, and he had been in the UK for about 6 months. Christmas was coming, which meant nothing to most of the Indian sailors as they were Hindu, and the Indian Navy put on celebrations for Divali, but nothing for Christmas. So George, was suffering with homesickness quite a bit. So I arranged through my divisional officer and his for his release for 2 weeks when HMS Drake went on Christmas Leave, and he was allowed to come home to Gower in Wales with me and stay with my family. He was utterly spoiled by both my family and the whole of my village, which was and is a very tight community all built around the village pub, George was a real superstar. Many of the older people in my village had barely met anyone from Cardiff at that time, let alone somewhere as exotic as India. After that, HMS Hermes became the Indian Navy Ship Viraat and they all sailed away. George and I lost touch.

On Sunday I had a call from my mum to say that George was in the house. It turns out he has three daughters and a bunch of grandchildren now. One of his daughters married a UK citizen and now lives in Essex. For the last 3 weeks George has been over from India visiting them, and made them do a pilgrimage to Wales, to Gower, to remember that Christmas almost 38 years ago. His family told me afterwards that he has bored them to death telling about it all their lives. Despite never being there they felt that they knew me, my family and my community. When he got to Gower last Sunday he remembered everything, he took the family to Rhossili Bay, and saw the pub boarded up, which made him sad. He saw our house, but would not call in case we were not there anymore. But his daughter decided they had to know, because George had been searching for us for a long time online, but to no avail, I don’t have an online presence. George would have been upset to find that we were no longer there and was convinced that would be the case. So his daughter knocked our door and my mum answered. His daughter asked my mum if she could remember an Indian sailor who once visited for Christmas almost 40 years ago. My mum said do you mean George, and the daughter burst into tears. They all came in and whatsapped me, and after rugby on Saturday I went to Braintree to catch up with George again and have dinner with his family. It was amazing. You can never underestimate the impact of simple kindness. I had no real comprehension of the impact of what I did all those years ago when I was just 18. But it did. His family feel like they know me, and I had no idea they even existed. Just remember that, the impact of being kind. Pay it forward and change someone’s day, week, month, maybe even life, by just being kind. Let that sink in. How do you want to be known or remembered, do you want people to know you and remember you with fondness or dread and hatred. It is important you get that choice right. May God bless you all.