Musings on motherhood, ministry and the Eucharist.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Courage, Dear Heart


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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