Well, there you have it, finally someone else said it. I'm a 95 year old man at heart :)
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| How I feel relating to others my age... |
Dear everyone-who’s-come out today: welcome! The list of parents, roommates, grandparents, great-grandparents, faculty, staff, and what seems like a billion, billion other people that have worked to put today together is far too innumerable to begin to thank fully. To those of you graduating, congratulations! You effectively survived outfitting yourselves in the most flowing dress that you will ever wear! I will admit that the garb is not particularly flattering, but has it’s own attraction, I suppose.
I’ve been allotted about four minutes. In those four minutes I have been charged with being, quote, “the voice of the graduating class.” This is a charge I choose to take seriously. Our world is guided by voices. Some voices shout loudly, others simply whisper. Many have no voice at all. Across the centuries, as all graduating today have learned, there has been a “silent majority”. People pushed into silence by those in power. For hundreds or even thousands of years, a large group of the population was unable to voice their opinions freely for fear of retribution. The United States of America was so concerned with this issue that we decided to affix a right into our constitution by the very first amendment, which states that, among other things, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”. Is this a right that we use so seldomly that we often forget we have it? Edward Burke once said that “all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” It is vital that each of us speaks up and speaks out.
Assuming everyone here has accepted the need for voicing something, the question then just becomes, what? There are sufficient slogans in the world to fill our mouths from now until forever. At the door of our minds and hearts lie crowds and rallies calling for us to come out and join them. What is the crowd you will join? What is the voice you will use? Is it one of ridicule? One of mocking? Will it be a voice of consolation? Will you shout? Will you call others to war? To peace? Or will it be, as Mary Anne Radmacher once said, a “little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow”? What causes will you support? Will you call for economic equality? Food security? Homeland security? Will you be one voice among millions, or a voice for millions without one? I give no opinion, no recommendation. The choice is entirely yours. The destiny of your voice is your own. Do remember, however, that your voice carries great weight from now on. You have joined one of the most educated groups that this world has ever seen. You have graduated from one of the greatest universities in the nation. Your voice is now more important than anyone is willing to tell you. You have been granted a voice in a world of them. How will you use it? You can now make a greater difference than ever before. Your life, as a result of that exceptionally flowing dress, can have greater meaning and purpose than ever before. Take a moment and ask yourself, what voice will I be?
Dearest class of 2014, we will be many things. We may be doctors, lawyers, artists, dancers, architects, scientists, or one of a million other things. In this moment where I have been designated to be your voice, let me say to those present, to the parents, the faculty, the staff, the administrators, any of the world willing to listen, with a prayer that it carries your conviction and permission, that we, the class of 2014, will be many things, but we will not be silent.
Thank you.
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