My baccalaureate speech for Juneau high schools 2015
In preparation to speak with you
tonight, I decided I should read over the journal I kept my senior year of high
school. I thought maybe it would be
inspiring. It wasn’t. A few weeks before senior year began I broke
up with my first and only high school boyfriend. From August to February my journal is full of
angsty entries. I dissected every single
time we met in the halls of JDHS. I even
sketched a schematic to show how close we sat to each other in our French
class. And then from February to May I only wrote a handful of times. I think I was so busy and overwhelmed with
college applications and Debate competitions, and actually trying to study that
I probably didn’t get around it . . . but
I’m not sure. There’s a possibility that
these months were filled with all kinds of deep thoughts that maybe I could
have shared with you tonight. I’d like
to think so anyway.
One thing is for certain—just
reading through my senior year journal made me exhausted. And so tonight, I’d like to tell
you—congratulations on a job well done.
All those science projects, and English essays, and math tests, were for
this moment. Soak it in.
And I’d also like to tell you,
thank you. Your education isn’t just for
you, or to make your mother happy or your grandma proud, or your dad relieved
[though those are all good reasons], your education is a gift that you give to
your community, your country, your world.
And so I want to tell you on behalf
of your family and your community how happy and proud we are of you and also how
much we need you.
We need your gifts and your talents
and your energy. We need your truth as only you can speak it. We need your courage.
Back to my high school journal—the
second to last entry I made, almost exactly 17 years ago today, when many of
you were one year old, does contain one nugget that I want to share with
you. This entry reminded me of the
strength and perseverance needed to make it to this point and to look ahead to
what lies beyond.
On May 16th, 1998,
finally emerging from the fog of finals, I wrote: “I’ve been in despair [I was
a little dramatic when I was a senior, I’m totally past that now], but in the
midst of it I heard a voice saying, ‘Courage, dear heart.’ Just as the voice of Aslan said to Lucy in
the Voyage of the Dawn Treader when
the boat was lost in the dark island.
The bearer of the voice led them out.
I’ve been led too.”
The book I’m referring too, that I
must have been reading my senior year, is the third book of the Chronicles of
Narnia. Maybe some of you have read
them? They were kind of like your
grandparents’ Harry Potter.
This image of Aslan’s voice
whispering “courage dear heart” in the midst of the darkness resonated with me
then, and still does now.
Courage is needed for so many
things:
To
finish something you’ve begun.
To
begin something new.
To
be the truest version of yourself.
To
be wrong.
To
ask the questions you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to answer.
To
leave home.
To
come home again.
Philosopher and theologian Paul
Tillich said, “Courage is the affirmation of one’s essential nature.” And in the past 18 years as you’ve grown and
matured the most important work you’ve done has been the work of discovering
who you are.
In the 2nd century St.
Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” For each of us this means something
different—to be fully alive. It means
what gives you the most energy and joy and freedom. What is the gift you were born to give the
world? We all have one.
This gift might change over time
and it takes courage to wrestle and sit and trust that this gift will reveal
itself. Because part of being fully
alive, of being human, is wanting more than just to be entertained or
superficially happy—in the end it is the connections we have with each other,
that define us. But connection is risky,
because to connect is to be real.
I learned this a few years after I
graduated from JDHS. On a safari trip in
Kenya when I was twenty I injured my back, herniating 3 discs. My injuries left me in a lot of pain, but
their nature did not make me a good candidate for surgery. I was told to be patient, to wait. Eventually, hopefully, the pain might go
away.
So I spent my senior year of
college hobbling back and forth to classes and lying on my bed in the attic
window of the house I shared with three other college students. I watched as other people played Ultimate
Frisbee or jogged around campus or even just sat with their backs against a
tree to study. I never felt more like I
had no gift to give.
And that’s when I met Pat. Pat was a gentleman who lived a few blocks
away from campus in one of the L’Arche houses for adults with developmental
disabilities.
I’ve always been someone who’s
enjoyed volunteering. But I knew at this
point in my life I couldn’t rake leaves or paint or do any of the other
volunteer activities that high school and college students are so good at—but I
figured I could sit for a short period of time with someone else who was maybe
lonely too.
From the first time I picked Pat up
we developed a pattern. We walked the
few blocks to Starbucks. We ordered our
drinks. We sat across from each other
and smiled. And then we walked home.
Pat’s developmental disabilities
meant he couldn’t speak. I learned from
the L’Arche community that since being abandoned as a baby Pat had lived in
over 50 institutions and group homes before moving to L’Arche a year before I
met him. Of anyone I’ve ever met Pat had
the most reason not to be open and accepting of strangers. But Pat’s gift was presence and he gave that
gift to me every time we went out for hot chocolate. Pat didn’t care if I could cook or clean or
write a fabulous essay or if I passed my Physics class—he simply cared. Because I was there.
Pat remains for me a model of
courage. What it means to show up in
life. To give your own individual
irreplaceable gift to the world even if sometimes, it will be rejected.
But where does this courage come
from? One of my favorite verses in the
Bible, comes from Paul’s letter to the community in Ephesus. Paul prays for this fledgling community: “For this reason I bow my knees before the
Father . . . I pray that, according to the riches of his glory he may grant you
to be strengthened in your inner being . . . as you are being rooted and
grounded in love.”
To be rooted and grounded in
love. Here is the source of
courage.
And so, my prayer for each of you,
as you branch out to new pursuits and possibly new places, and definitely new
adventures—is that you remain rooted and grounded in love—in the love of your
family and friends, in the beauty of Juneau, in the love of God. It is in the rootedness to the very center of
our being that we each find the courage to say “yes” to all that life has to
offer.
And so I’d like to say—from my 18
year-old self to you—“courage, dear heart”.
Courage for the beautiful, unpredictable, precious journey of your life fully lived.
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