| Speeches SIENA COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT REMARKS SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2007 Thank you, Dr. Harrison. Father Mackin, Dr. Pastore, Bishop Hubbard, distinguished guests, family members, faculty, staff, and most importantly, my fellow graduates of the Class of 2007… Thank you for this honor. Thank you for having me with you today on this special day. Years from now, chances are that you will not much remember what was said here today. To be honest, I can’t even recall who spoke at my own college graduation; what I do remember, though, are the proud smiles of my parents, and a personal feeling of real accomplishment. And this is fitting. This is right. These are the things you should remember. But in the brief time I have with you today, I do have something I’d like to share, a wish I’d like to impart. It is a wide-ranging wish, broad in its implications for you and for those around you, but it can be encompassed in a single word: Courage. Yesterday, I know, some of you earned your commissions as 2nd Lieutenants in the United States Army. In any time, it takes a strong measure of courage to wear our country’s uniform, to join the ranks of our armed forces; in times of war, it takes a special kind of courage—of a kind that is rare, and that does not reside within all of us. Your courage is to be commended, and saluted, and met with gratitude by your fellow classmates and citizens. And I would have all of us—for this is an exhortation aimed at you, graduates, but applicable to us all—I would have us remember that courage comes in many forms. It is sorely needed in our communities, in our country, and in our troubled world. It is a yoke that, if we are to succeed in ways big and small, we must all take up, and take up with joy. And so I wish for you: The courage of your convictions. You come to this pass, today—this crossroads—filled with ideals. That is the way of youth. My hope is that you can avoid the cynicism that says that this is the way of youth, only, that ideals fall away inevitably with the accumulation of years and experience. No, ideals only fall away with your permission. Do not consent to be stripped of your enthusiasm, your heartfelt convictions about the way things should be and your individual power to make them so. I also wish for you the courage to let those closest to you—your parents, your friends, the rocks you cling to in your personal storms—know how you feel about them. Love is a short word but, perhaps because it contains so much, it can be the hardest word to say. Do not wait, do not hesitate—find the courage to say how you feel. I wish for you, today, the courage not to confine your moral beliefs to houses of worship, nor your moral actions to those for whom displays of compassion require no effort. The headlines are filled with stories of those who check their moral and ethical codes at the workplace door or at the gates of power. This is understandable. This is human. But we can do better, and I wish for you the strength to demand better of yourselves. To obey our moral teachings—not only when it is convenient, but when it is most difficult—is not, as some would have it, a sign of naiveté, but rather a mark of courage. And it is courage of a most powerful kind, the kind that C.S. Lewis described as “not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Finally, I wish for you the courage to be Americans, in the most basic and fundamental expression of that word. To be an American is to be a citizen. And to be a citizen, in this Constitutional republic based on principles of freedom and democracy, is to know your rights and, more importantly, to use them. This is where courage comes in—the courage to find the energy and time to be a citizen, among all the other things we are called on to be and, most of all, the courage to stand up and be counted. Democracy is not a spectator sport, nor was it meant to be. If government of, by, and for the people is not to perish from this earth, we need to remember that “the government” does not reside solely in Washington, or town hall, or the statehouse. It resides within every one of us. Voting is a part of this, but it is far, far from the only part. You have the right to free speech, to peaceably assemble, to petition your representatives for redress of grievances. Use these rights, and guard them closely. They are yours and many have fought and died, have struggled and faced persecution, so that you and I might enjoy them. May you heed the words of Andrew Jackson, who spoke of the bravery of standing up for what is right when he said that, “One man with courage makes a majority.” I might add that my fellow honoree Helen Thomas knows a great deal about this form of courage, and I am sure that the others on this platform today do as well. “Courage,” Plato wrote, “is a kind of salvation,” and it is what I wish for you in this signature moment of your lives, and for the years ahead. Having endured my prose, I want to leave you with the gift of poetry (not my own, you’ll be happy to know!). And it carries with it a suggestion. Tonight, as this day of celebration draws to its close, take a moment to look upwards and try to find, among the clouds, a star. Gaze upon it and think of Robert Frost’s poem “Choose Something Like a Star,” and claim that wise American’s verse as your own: O Star (the fairest one in sight), We grant your loftiness the right To some obscurity of cloud -- It will not do to say of night, Since dark is what brings out your light. Some mystery becomes the proud. But to be wholly taciturn In your reserve is not allowed. Say something to us we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says, "I burn." But say with what degree of heat. Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. Use language we can comprehend. Tell us what elements you blend. It gives us strangely little aid, But does tell something in the end. And steadfast as Keats' Eremite, Not even stooping from its sphere, It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid. Congratulations, good luck, and Godspeed! |
