It was the time of the canonical hour of Lauds when night moves to day and darkness to light. It is truly for me, like the sun, a time to rise and shine, to dive deep into the miracle of that which is life today. The first gleam of light of this tranquil time is a valuable time for my morning contemplation and mediation before I plunge into trying to shorten what seems to be Susan’s unending honey-do-list.

You know we each must have a place and a certain time of a certain day where you don’t know what is in the newspapers and on the air waves.  My time and place are those forty minutes on the pre-dawn streets. It’s a time and place where I simply experience and call forth who I am and what I might be. That is my place. My sacred place, where I find myself again and again. This morning I was thinking about graduation and a “Wheeee” message I had received earlier this week from another graduate whom I first had met in one of the First Year Experience history classes. We had been in touch on and off over these past five years. Now, he was asking for some “departing pearls of wisdom” that could guide him as he left the world of VSU for the world at large. This is what I replied:

“Congratulations. So, now you have your diploma. Now you want me to be something like a North Star, to offer you some sort of guidance for walking in the right direction on the ‘Now what’ path that you’re coming up to. You really don’t need me except to tell you that you have yourself. Look inside. If you find a time and place to think silently about the hesitant person you were when you first stepped on campus five years ago, who you are at this moment, how you got here, and what you can become ‘out there,’ you’ll see that you’ve fashioned your own ‘true north’ compass. You really don’t need my tinkering around. All through these past years, family and friends and faculty have doubted you; at times, you faltered and doubted yourself; then you heroically–yes, heroically–picked yourself up with an ‘I’ll show them’ attitude. But, you never really had an ‘I’ll show me’ attitude. Yeah, you persevered and have your diploma. All that says is what you did. Look at what it says about who you are and can become. Now, you see you’re stuffed full of the information and skills, the grades and GPA, that you needed to get that sheepskin. Do you see, however, that you’ve stuffed yourself with the right stuff, with what it takes to use that stuff in the right way? If you don’t see that and use it, the diploma is worth diddly squat. Diploma and education are not necessarily synonymous terms. An education is more likely to help you avoid falling under the spell of temptation that is training. And, temptation is all around you. Someone is always going to tell you that you’re wrong, that it’s too hard, that you can’t do that, that it’s impossible. You’ll be tempted to believe that your critics are right. You’ll be pressured to compromise yourself. You’ll feel the demands imposed by others to become the person they want you to become. Conquer all that, as you learned to do these past five years, use what you learned about yourself, and you’ll find the courage to live. And, it does take courage to truly live a life of being alive. The world, academic and non-academic alike, is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves, who have been frightened off course, who have listened to others telling them what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, what they ought to think, what values they ought to possess, what they ought to say. Too many people have allowed themselves to become flatten, to lose their humanity, to relinquish their individuality, to sheepishly follow the crowd and bleat only that which is popular, to lose what someone called “the rapture of being alive.” You’ve seen it all around on campus and at your job. Now all you have to do is to use the stuff to stay the right course and not to be thrown off course by the obstacles, dangers, and pressures you’ll face. If you accept less than who you are capable of being, if you take a job just to have money to have a good livelihood, if you seek only position and renown, if you stop listening to yourself, if you have no sense of significance or meaning or purpose, if you allow your vision to fade or let others take away your vision, then I warn you that you’ll turn yourself into a slave and you’ll be a very unhappy camper. Remember, your happiness, your true and deep happiness, comes from being alive, that is, in being alert and aware and involved. It really does not dwell in earning a living; it is found in the value of your inner self, not in the value of your car, house, and bank account. Find a place where you’re happy, not just excited and satisfied and comfortable, and you’ll find the waters that will extinguish the anguish, anxiety, and pain. All that will take daily courage and strength. You’ll need to keep in shape, to develop workout programs for both your body and soul. That way you’ll remain physically and spiritually fit. Trust me, living a significant life each day filled with meaning, purpose, and vision in your life isn’t all that much of a newsworthy spectacle, but it is indeed a spectacular and powerful way to live a significant life.”

Maybe these should be arriving pearls of wisdom for incoming students–if they’d listen.

Make it a good day.