Service of Gratitude and Remembrance

Williams College Alumni Weekend

 

Sunday, June 10, 2007  -  Thompson Memorial Chapel

 

Intimations of God’s Glory

 

I feel honored to speak with you this morning. I realize that in most part I was asked to do so because I am a member of the class celebrating our 50th reunion. So I want to share this honor with our class and on our behalf thank the college for the hospitality we have received. Everyone from staff to faculty to other alums and students has been extraordinarily friendly, warm and welcoming.

 

Those of us here for our 50th reunion received several weeks ago a book of remembrances and reflections contributed by our classmates. I was surprised how intrigued and delighted I was to read them. It was more than nostalgia, more than wanting to prepare to meet old friends in new incarnations. I found myself astonished at the wonderful growth of these now mature and accomplished human beings – the very ones I had known here when we were fumbling around trying to discover who we were and what we might make of ourselves. I was impressed not only by the achievements of my classmates but also by their nobility of spirit, their generous values, their hopes for a better world and their efforts to make it so.

 

A few weeks ago I attended the funeral of one of our classmates. His name is Bruce. During the homily the pastor spoke of his courage. He employed the title of Paul Tillich’s wonderful book of a generation ago: The Courage to Be. As I thought about it, I began to realize that that virtue of courage applied to a lot of the classmates I had been reading about. They were describing their courage to be, to embrace life. Their courage to keep expanding their knowledge and assumptions, to keep enlarging their openness to differences; courage to embrace change on the one hand and on the other to respect tradition, courage to stand for the right, to persevere despite adversity, courage to admit mistakes, courage to allow others to make mistakes.

 

When Chaplain Rick Spalding asked me to choose sacred readings for our service today, I thought of the passages from Genesis 1 and Ephesians 3 because they speak from our religious heritage of our highest human potential, which I glimpsed in our book of reflections. We are made in the image of God to share responsibility with God for this beautiful world we are creating together. I thought of God’s courage as God risks creating the universe afresh each day and entrusting to us the stewardship of it. God’s spirit is given to us to inspire us with God’s soaring concern and love for one another and all the human family and this glorious universe.

 

As I read the reflections of my classmates, I caught intimations of God’s glory in these stories. It was like looking at a lake in the late afternoon and seeing the ‘s shimmering colors of blue and pink and purple and gold of the sky in the water.

 

To paint this lofty picture is not to say that there were not dark and murky patches in our stories. These reflections testified to the struggles and failures. Genesis 2 says that God made us of the dust. I remember well some of the dusty and muddy paths we chose while we were here together. Often embarrassing. Sometimes sad — even tragic.

Nonetheless, having read these reflections, I see as evidence in others what I’ve known in my own experience that living in the community of Williams enkindles and fosters these aspirations of the highest good. A great faculty pushed our inner yearning to reach even beyond accelerating intellectual skills and broad fields of knowledge to ask foundational questions. What’s it all for? What are we striving to achieve? What’s in us that we want to give? How can we contribute to the larger human family and the wellness of the world we live in?

 

We are concluding our reunion weekend with this service. We’ve had a chance to wander around the campus and to stir up memories of our college days. We have seen the way Williams is growing from strength to strength. We have had a heartwarming opportunity to greet old friends and to catch up with them and their families. We’ve had lovely chats with classmates we didn’t know all that well but now wish we could see often. But I hope that most of all you have had some thoughts of what Williams may have given your inner spirit. To raise your sights.  To give you purpose and courage to pursue those aspirations. So this service provides us first of all the occasion to give thanks for these gifts.

 

But the service is also designed to be a memorial service. It is intended to bring into our presence those classmates who have died. I’ve had a chance to go over the list of our classmates who have died and to think of them and ask God’s blessing on them. I have thought of special friends whom I miss very much. As I contemplated these friends I caught a glimpse again of their goodness, I remembered moments that were very special for us. I thought of those particular gifts they have made to brighten our world. I have seen in these glimmerings intimations of God’s glory.

 

We are going to have an opportunity now to remember and give thanks to God for departed Wiliams graduates -- especially those who have died in the past 5 years. I invite you to recall classmates you would like to name in your inner spirit. Let your heart reconnect with them as we continue with this service of blessing for them.