C O M M E N C E M E N T   2008

 

Benediction

So are this place and these people a blessing to each other. 

And so is that blessing permanent and indelible, even as now the wind changes and the tide of time turns.

 

And as the tide and wind scatter you like seeds of hope across the landscape of the world, may you be mindful of one true but seldom spoken thing about your relationship to this place, these people, and all places and people:

 

May you remember that the world that waits for you is full of people who deserve to feel in their lives the same kind of love and esteem and respect and delight that you feel here and now for each other.  May you remember that the blessing you have found among these people waits for you to recognize it in every bond with every child of God you will meet.  The bounty you have found in this place is rare indeed; but the blessing you have found here to nourish you must not be rare, or else the world will starve.

 

So let us go now from this place and these people we have learned to love,

into a world we are still learning to love.

 

Let us go now in peace—        

            to seek a wisdom

deeper even than all the knowledge we have gained and prized here –

to enact a love of life

wider even than all the affection we have known and shared here –

to build a community of all earth’s peoples

truer even than the community we have struggled for and cherished here.

 

Let us go because the world that waits 

is ripe with possibilities,

                        filled with enough anguish and struggle to make our hearts ache,

                                    and enough beauty to take our breath away.

 

It is a world that wells up even now with grief at the brutal harvest of war

            and staggers under the unconscionable burden of poverty.

 

It is a world that hungers for our gifts,

            that awaits our insights,

                        that longs for our solidarity,

                                    that will reward our imagination,

                                                that will rise with our courage.

 

You know, as you leave, that questions you were not able to answer here,

            and challenges  you have not yet risen to,

                        and mistakes you have not yet admitted,

                                    will go with you.

 

But know, too, as you go, that

the peace of the purple hills goes with you,

                        the peace of the fiery autumn goes with you,

                                    the peace of the sunlit snow goes with you,

the peace of the singing stars goes with you.

 

And believe, dear friends, if you dare,

            even as you have dared to believe so much while you have lived here,

that the deep peace of God lives in you even now, as you go,

 

and that it will show you

                        the work that waits before you,

                                    the hope that grows around you,

                                                the courage the stirs within you.

 

Go.   In peace.   Alleluia!   Amen.

 

 

 

The Rev. Richard E. Spalding,

Chaplain to the College