I originally posted this in June 2010 as a note on facebook, but given these times of even more political uncertainty I felt that it was worth reposting. The news is more distressing than ever as we as American citizens become even more divided and political extremist seem to be taking center stage. My hope is that the American people will once again find their sense of community and pride and look to their fellow man as their neighbor and not their enemy. We cannot roll back the clock to a time when we lived in an exclusionist nation therefore we must find our way into living within a global community without stepping on the necks of others.
The following is a speech delivered at Friends University commencement May 2010. As I sat in Hartman Arena beaming with pride and excitement at watching my younger brother graduate, I was not prepared to be riveted to my seat by a keynote address. My ears perked up at the introduction of the speaker, Dr. Gretchen Eick, a history professor at the university but what she said so impressed me and provoked a deeper level of thought that it has stuck with me. I recently wrote to Dr. Eick and ask for a copy of her address and she was gracious enough to share so I am passing on the pearls of wisdom to you. Enjoy!
How many of you stayed up all night at least one night this week completing the work you needed to do to earn your college degree? Let’s see a show of hands.
How many of you have been looking back on your years at Friends and recalling major changes in your life that occurred while you were in pursuit of this moment?
Some of you lost family members very important in your lives; some of you were surprised to gain new family members!
How many jobs did you gain and lose?
How many times were you forced to rethink assumptions you brought with you to university?
How many of you sat in your advisor’s office at least once totally overwhelmed by the task of getting through college while working , caring for family, and trying to find the cash to pay your mountain of bills?
People tend to tell others that your college years “are the best years of your life.” Not so. The best years of your life lie ahead of you, even if at this moment you are uncertain what comes next.
A former student of mine wrote me this week, “I think one thing for graduates to remember is that they have to be open to the fact that the life they may have planned for themselves, might not be the one that actually happens”
Be prepared for major surprises. Some of the surprises you will welcome with excitement; others will break your heart. But you can depend upon it: your life will hold frequent changes of course and the dreams you hold today will morph into new dreams in the process of living.
POINT ONE: Don’t be afraid of change.
POINT TWO: Your family is global
. Those families in Kandahar, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq, in Haiti and Nigeria, Burma and Sri Lanka
, they are your family. When innocent civilians explode into fragments of flesh anywhere in the world, their shattered lives are connected to your wellbeing. The horror and injustice of their lost lives affect your future whether or not you realize it. A youth who watches brutal treatment of his family members may seek revenge. Oil spills that ruin coastal ecosystems and national disasters that render hundreds of thousands of individuals homeless affect you. Belonging to hundreds of distinct cultures, speaking many languages and practicing different religions, your family is worldwide and the whole planet is your neighborhood.
POINT THREE: Life comes with consequences. You live in a nation that currently is experiencing a life or death struggle over whether anyone outside our borders matters and over whether government
has the right to restrain or regulate the accumulation of wealth in the face of the disastrous disparity between the haves and the have nothings. The rhetoric of hate has found new life this year and if you participate in it, there are consequences. If you join the rhetoric of hate you will endanger the precious heritage your foremothers and forefathers worked very hard to ensure for you.
Let’s think for a minute about that heritage that is yours.
You live in a country that has a long history of expanding recognition of basic human rights and freedoms. Expanding freedoms did not come easily or without struggle. Indeed, we outlawed slavery 33 years after our colonial mother country Britain outlawed it in all of her colonies. But gradually we expanded our understanding of who was guaranteed rights to include first EuroAmerican men who did not own any property, then to African American men, then to women, then to Native Americans, then to young adults and children.
That struggle to expand our understanding of who has basic human rights
continues.
You live in a country that has been multicultural since its inception. One third of its territory was Mexican long before it was added to the United States. The Native Americans who lived on this land before anyone else were more diverse in cultures and language families than virtually anywhere else on this earth.
When Europeans came to explore and claim land for their rulers, they came with Africans. In fact, more than a quarter of a million {300,000} Africans came to the Americas from 1502-1619, far more than all the Europeans who came combined. We have been multicultural from the start.
You also live in a country where people argue obstreperously over what they believe and what should and should not be the role of government, often polarized between commitment to individualism and commitment to community. Arguing and debating is fine, essential to democracy. We need to talk about what to do about growing disparity between rich and poor and what can be done to address it. As Ron Paul
has written, that growing gap is dangerous for our democracy : “Our system of freedom is skewed and is becoming very dangerous (approx. 100 million US citizens [--those who own no property] experience ZERO freedom)”. [That is one third of our population!] Paul continues: “You can only cage humans for so long and then something has to give. When liberty is skewed into the hands of a very small number of the population, then our ability to "self-govern" becomes a complete and utter illusion.”
Today we hear loud and angry voices defying our government and shouting for states’ rights; 13 states are demanding the right for states to nullify federal laws. Those are the ideas that brought us to civil war
141 years ago! More than half a million [600,000] Americans lost their lives in that struggle before our national government was recognized as sovereign. Don’t get swept up in angry rhetoric and actions. To paraphrase James Madison,
the father of our Constitution, majorities rule but mobs are dangerous.
Use your college education to investigate various perspectives rather than listening only to one. As President Obama said this week, watch Fox and MSNBC! Our American Revolution produced the writer Thomas Paine who wrote in his booklet entitled The Crisis, “We have no other national sovereignty than as United States. It would be fatal for us if we had…Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction.”
So what does this have to do with you as you sit here in your caps and gowns?
Back to CONSEQUENCES. If you move into the rest of your life with a smug certainty that your culture, your religion, your ideas are the BEST and the ONLY ones worth considering, you will steal the future from your children and those who come after them.
Don’t be afraid of change.
Care about your extended (global) family and the neighborhood you share with them.
And
Think about the consequences of your actions and of our national and local actions; take your citizenship seriously.
We people of the United States comprise only 5% of the world’s population—a very small part of the whole—yet we are the richest 1% of the world’s population . With blessing comes responsibility. I have come to know many of you during this part of your journey. I believe you are up to the challenge. I hope you are up to the challenge for your global family members are counting on you.
How many of you stayed up all night at least one night this week completing the work you needed to do to earn your college degree? Let’s see a show of hands.
How many of you have been looking back on your years at Friends and recalling major changes in your life that occurred while you were in pursuit of this moment?
Some of you lost family members very important in your lives; some of you were surprised to gain new family members!
How many jobs did you gain and lose?
How many times were you forced to rethink assumptions you brought with you to university?
How many of you sat in your advisor’s office at least once totally overwhelmed by the task of getting through college while working , caring for family, and trying to find the cash to pay your mountain of bills?
People tend to tell others that your college years “are the best years of your life.” Not so. The best years of your life lie ahead of you, even if at this moment you are uncertain what comes next.
A former student of mine wrote me this week, “I think one thing for graduates to remember is that they have to be open to the fact that the life they may have planned for themselves, might not be the one that actually happens”
Be prepared for major surprises. Some of the surprises you will welcome with excitement; others will break your heart. But you can depend upon it: your life will hold frequent changes of course and the dreams you hold today will morph into new dreams in the process of living.
POINT ONE: Don’t be afraid of change.
POINT TWO: Your family is global
. Those families in Kandahar, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq, in Haiti and Nigeria, Burma and Sri Lanka, they are your family. When innocent civilians explode into fragments of flesh anywhere in the world, their shattered lives are connected to your wellbeing. The horror and injustice of their lost lives affect your future whether or not you realize it. A youth who watches brutal treatment of his family members may seek revenge. Oil spills that ruin coastal ecosystems and national disasters that render hundreds of thousands of individuals homeless affect you. Belonging to hundreds of distinct cultures, speaking many languages and practicing different religions, your family is worldwide and the whole planet is your neighborhood.POINT THREE: Life comes with consequences. You live in a nation that currently is experiencing a life or death struggle over whether anyone outside our borders matters and over whether government
has the right to restrain or regulate the accumulation of wealth in the face of the disastrous disparity between the haves and the have nothings. The rhetoric of hate has found new life this year and if you participate in it, there are consequences. If you join the rhetoric of hate you will endanger the precious heritage your foremothers and forefathers worked very hard to ensure for you.Let’s think for a minute about that heritage that is yours.
You live in a country that has a long history of expanding recognition of basic human rights and freedoms. Expanding freedoms did not come easily or without struggle. Indeed, we outlawed slavery 33 years after our colonial mother country Britain outlawed it in all of her colonies. But gradually we expanded our understanding of who was guaranteed rights to include first EuroAmerican men who did not own any property, then to African American men, then to women, then to Native Americans, then to young adults and children.
That struggle to expand our understanding of who has basic human rights
continues.You live in a country that has been multicultural since its inception. One third of its territory was Mexican long before it was added to the United States. The Native Americans who lived on this land before anyone else were more diverse in cultures and language families than virtually anywhere else on this earth.
When Europeans came to explore and claim land for their rulers, they came with Africans. In fact, more than a quarter of a million {300,000} Africans came to the Americas from 1502-1619, far more than all the Europeans who came combined. We have been multicultural from the start.
You also live in a country where people argue obstreperously over what they believe and what should and should not be the role of government, often polarized between commitment to individualism and commitment to community. Arguing and debating is fine, essential to democracy. We need to talk about what to do about growing disparity between rich and poor and what can be done to address it. As Ron Paul
has written, that growing gap is dangerous for our democracy : “Our system of freedom is skewed and is becoming very dangerous (approx. 100 million US citizens [--those who own no property] experience ZERO freedom)”. [That is one third of our population!] Paul continues: “You can only cage humans for so long and then something has to give. When liberty is skewed into the hands of a very small number of the population, then our ability to "self-govern" becomes a complete and utter illusion.”Today we hear loud and angry voices defying our government and shouting for states’ rights; 13 states are demanding the right for states to nullify federal laws. Those are the ideas that brought us to civil war
141 years ago! More than half a million [600,000] Americans lost their lives in that struggle before our national government was recognized as sovereign. Don’t get swept up in angry rhetoric and actions. To paraphrase James Madison, the father of our Constitution, majorities rule but mobs are dangerous.Use your college education to investigate various perspectives rather than listening only to one. As President Obama said this week, watch Fox and MSNBC! Our American Revolution produced the writer Thomas Paine who wrote in his booklet entitled The Crisis, “We have no other national sovereignty than as United States. It would be fatal for us if we had…Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction.”
So what does this have to do with you as you sit here in your caps and gowns?
Back to CONSEQUENCES. If you move into the rest of your life with a smug certainty that your culture, your religion, your ideas are the BEST and the ONLY ones worth considering, you will steal the future from your children and those who come after them.
Don’t be afraid of change.
Care about your extended (global) family and the neighborhood you share with them.
And
Think about the consequences of your actions and of our national and local actions; take your citizenship seriously.
We people of the United States comprise only 5% of the world’s population—a very small part of the whole—yet we are the richest 1% of the world’s population . With blessing comes responsibility. I have come to know many of you during this part of your journey. I believe you are up to the challenge. I hope you are up to the challenge for your global family members are counting on you.
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