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It has
occurred to me that most graduation speeches .... including
mine .... are not terribly memorable. But I keep trying. As
do others.
Over the
course of the Memorial Day weekend, I spent four days in Elk
Rapids. Late one evening, while channel-surfing in search
of some athletic contest, I stumbled across the C-Span network.
Somebody was delivering a graduation speech. I could tell
by the garb. So I listened awhile. Subsequently, I learned
that C-Span was replaying a slew of graduation speeches, one
right after the other, over the course of several days. And
before the long weekend was over, I must have heard excerpts
from twenty such efforts. They were delivered by professors
and politicians .... poets and philosophers. All of them,
solid. All of them, scholarly. But none of them, memorable.
Save for
two. The first of which was delivered by a Unitarian preacher
and culture commentator named Robert Fulghum. Not everybody
knows Fulghum's name, but everybody knows his first book:
All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.
Actually, Fulghum writes some good stuff. And his titles are
fantastic. It's hard to pass up book covers that read It
Was On Fire When I Lay Down on It, Uh Oh, and Maybe,
Maybe Not. But Fulghum's best book may be his serious
attempt to discuss the rituals of our lives in a work entitled
From Beginning to End.
At any
rate, Robert Fulghum was invited to deliver a graduation address
at Syracuse University. What would he say? At first, he didn't
say anything. He just stood there .... dressed in academic
regalia .... making silly motions with his hands and fingers.
But then the motions became recognizable. For there wasn't
a person in the audience (including me) who hadn't seen or
made them.
Once the
initial motions were complete, Fulghum repeated them. Only
this time he burst into song. Whereupon everybody in his audience
(including me) began to sing with him. And, to whatever degree
the spirit moves you, I invite you to sing with me now.
The
eensy-weensy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down
came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out
came the sun and dried up all the rain.
And
the eensy-weensy spider climbed up the spout again.
With apologies
to "Jesus Loves Me," "The Eensy-Weensy Spider"
is probably the first song we learned as children. But there
is more to it than meets the eye. Let's dissect it for a closer
look.
The
eensy-weensy spider climbed up the water spout.
What do
we learn? We learn that a very small-in-stature spider commenced
to climb. I suppose it is in the nature of spiders to be small.
And also to climb. As to this thing about water spouts, I
can't rightly say. I'm not all that "into" spiders.
Why a water spout? Because it was there, I suppose.
All things
considered, most of you are bigger than spiders. So why have
you been climbing like them? Several reasons, I suppose.
Because
the light is better up there.
Because
the view is better up there.
Because
the pay is better up there.
And
because things thin out up there ....
so you
won't feel crowded, trapped and lost in the crowd.
Down
came the rain and washed the spider out.
Rains
will come...which won't all be "showers of blessing."
And all the Doppler Radar in the world won't alert you to
their arrival. But when they come, they will interrupt your
"king of the hill" game, big time .... even as they
slow your "climb, climb up Sunshine Mountain." Such
rains will come in the form of:
a class
you can't pass
a boss
you can't please
a job
you can't do
a diagnosis
you can't dodge
a biopsy
that won't lie
or
a friend who will
an
addiction you can't kick out
or
a lover you can't coax back.
As concerns
such rains, the issue is not "if" but "when."
The author of Ecclesiastes is right. "Time and chance
really do happen to us all."
A tough
kid once approached me and said: "Ritter, do you know
what a swirly is?" Upon learning that I didn't, he said:
"A swirly is when I put your head in the toilet and flush."
Fortunately, I talked him out of his intention. But life often
accomplishes what he didn't .... grabbing our heads and flushing
all over us.
Out
came the sun and dried up all the rain.
Which
means that good things will also happen in your life.
Fortune
will smile on you.
Friends
will smile on you.
Love
will smile on you.
God
will smile on you.
And ....
as with the adversities .... you won't be able to explain
the "good stuff," either. "Why me?" is
not only something we cry in the rain. "Why me?"
is also something we cry in the sun. For most of you have
already been kissed by sunshine. I mean, do you think you
got this far by your own efforts?
Because
you were all that good?
Because
you were all that gifted?
Because
you were all that gorgeous?
Because
you were all that godly?
Well,
if that's what you are thinking, I suggest you cut the self-made
("I did it my way") crap, long enough to acknowledge
that you got this far (and did this much) because a whole
lot of wonderful people got in your way .... I mean, literally,
got in your way. Perhaps, because they were placed in your
way. I mean, they didn't all get there by accident, did they?
How is it they showed up exactly where you needed them...and
exactly when you needed them? When I take a long view of history,
I see my life as having been laced with people who showed
up at just the right time, and doors that opened when I didn't
have anyplace else to go.
And
the eensy-weensy spider climbed up the spout again.
The spider
was not easily deterred. Which is why this song is the quintessential
American anthem. And which is why there wasn't anybody in
the room, a few moments ago, who couldn't remember it ....
or wouldn't sing it. In addition to being in our brains, I
would contend that the "eensy-weensy spider" is
also in our blood.
But I
want to push you toward a second song. This one has no motions.
Although it does have words. But, before we sing the text,
I want to hum the tune. And when it becomes sufficiently familiar
so as to permit you to hum along, I invite you to join me.
I see
you all know this one, too. We sing it under the title "Joyful,
Joyful, We Adore Thee." But it wasn't written with that
text in mind .... which is why I had us hum it first. In its
own way, it's something of an onward-and-upward song, composed
by an onward-and-upward man (who, in his earthly life, got
rained on plenty).
I'm talking
about Ludwig van Beethoven. Born in 1770, he was raised in
the home of a poor musician (are there any other kind?). More
to the point, his father was described by one biographer as
a "drunken tenor." Beethoven was gifted, but troubled.
Something of a loner, he was multiply disappointed in love.
Given to unseemly behavior and deplorable manners, he often
played practical jokes which backfired, depriving him of the
camaraderie he craved. He accepted responsibility for a nephew
who brought him great disappointment. At age 30 he began to
experience a hearing loss. By age 49 he was totally deaf.
And for the last eight years of his life, he couldn't carry
on an audible conversation. A portrait of Beethoven at his
piano, painted during his deaf period, depicts the piano as
something of a wreck. Apparently, he pounded it into submission
in an effort to play it loud enough to hear the notes.
Yet, four
years before he died, he composed his ninth (and final) symphony,
closing with the memorable melody we now refer to as the "Ode
to Joy." Soaring and passionate, it almost begs for a
religious interpretation. And while Beethoven was not institutionally
religious, he once penned in a journal: "Every tree seems
to say holy, holy."
In 1911,
a Presbyterian Princetonian named Henry Van Dyke wrote lyrics
to it, fleshing out its religious potential. Moments ago,
we sang Van Dyke's lyric:
Joyful,
joyful, we adore thee,
God
of glory, Lord of love.
Hearts
unfold like flowers before thee,
Opening
to the sun above.
Melt
the clouds of sin and sadness,
Drive
the dark of doubt away.
Giver
of immortal gladness,
Fill
us with the light of day.
Ah, the
beginnings of an answer. It is God who causes the spirit to
soar. It is God who responds to the rains .... without and
within. And it is God who inspires (and rewards) the upward
climb. Consider Van Dyke's fourth verse:
Mortals,
join the mighty chorus
(meaning,
we are not alone)
Which
the morning stars began.
(even
nature joins in)
Love
divine is reigning o'er us,
Binding
all within its span.
And here
comes the good part.
Ever
singing, march we onward,
Victors
in the midst of strife.
Joyful
music leads us sunward,
In
the triumph song of life.
What do
we have here? What we have is the "eensy-weensy spider"
all dressed up for church. What we have is a reminder that
this "upward climb" is both God-inspired and well-nigh
universal. People have done it before us. People will do it
after us. We encourage it from generation to generation. Thirty-six
years ago, at an Albion College baccalaureate, I heard Henry
Hitt Crane say:
A tired
old doctor died one day,
And
a baby boy was born.
A
little new soul all pink and frail,
And
a soul that was tired and worn.
And
halfway here and halfway there,
On
a high white cloud of shining air,
They
met .... and passed .... then paused to speak
In
the flushed and hearty dawn.
And
the man looked down at the bright new child
With
wise and wearied eyes.
While
the little chap stared back at him
In
startled, scared surmise.
And
then he shook his downy head.
"I
think I'll not be born," he said,
"For
you look old .... and tired .... and gray .... "
As
he shrank from the pathway of the skies.
But
the tired old doctor roused once more
At
the battle cry of birth.
And
there was memory in his eyes
Of
pain .... and toil .... and mirth.
"Go
on," he said,
"It's
good .... it's bad .... it's hard .... it's ours, my lad."
And
he stood and waved him out of sight
On
to the waiting earth.
*
* * * *
I suppose
I could stop here. And I probably should stop here. But I
want to say one more thing, even as I introduce one more song.
Sticking with this idea of "the upward climb," let
me ask: "Might your climb be undertaken in response to
a call? And might that call originate outside you, rather
than inside you?"
At the
beginning of this little exercise, I told you I remembered
a pair of speeches that I saw on C-Span. The second was offered
by a trumpeter. The man's name was Wynton Marsalis. His audience
was Haverford College. He came to the podium holding a trumpet.
But before he put his lips to the mouthpiece, he talked about
his middle school band teacher. He described the first day
of the semester when the teacher passed out instruments to
various members of the class. To a skinny kid with thick glasses,
the teacher gave a clarinet. To a fat kid with big lips, the
teacher gave a tuba. "Then," said Wynton Marsalis,
"for reasons I can't begin to fathom, he handed a trumpet
to me. Then he told us to play. We were terrible. Anybody
would have said we were terrible. But he told us we were good.
Apparently he could see something in us that we couldn't see
in ourselves. And that was the day I was called to play the
trumpet."
Could
God have a call for you? Could God see something in you that
you aren't able to see in yourself? And might God be calling
you to a work you never considered (like this work) .... in
a place you never considered working (like a church)? In a
moment, we will sing:
Lord,
you have come to the lakeshore,
Looking
neither for wealthy nor wise ones.
You
only ask me to follow humbly.
O
Lord, with your eyes you have searched me,
And
while smiling, have spoken my name.
Now
my boat's left on the shoreline behind me.
By
your side, I will seek other seas.
Could
this year be that lakeshore? And could the "smiling Lord"
be speaking your name?
I worry
about the ministry. Not because God has stopped calling people
.... but because some of us are not doing enough to amplify
that call, so that people like yourselves no longer turn deaf
ears to it.
Rest assured,
God will never call you to something you are unequipped to
do. And God will never call you to something the world doesn't
desperately need to have done. But if you're waiting to be
struck by lightning or hit by a holy hammer, you could wait
all night. Because it probably won't happen that way.
God never
inserted himself into one of my dreams or pounded my stubborn
will into submission during a period of heavy prayer. Like
I said earlier, God "got in my way" .... with some
of the most unlikely people you could ever imagine. There
were a couple of young preachers who never said much about
the ministry, but portrayed it appealingly. And there were
a handful of silver-haired old ladies who, because they couldn't
fathom why a teenager would hang around a church as much as
I hung around mine, began to say things like: "I bet
you're going to be a minister." Little did they know
that the reason I hung around church so much was because it
provided a well-ordered oasis from some of the turmoil that
was going on in my life. And then there was a tired old English
Lit teacher who told me the only thing he would remember about
the semester was listening to me read Shakespeare.
These
were they who called me into ministry. And I've spent the
rest of my life trying to figure out if they were right.
But most
days, I wake up, knowing that I am:
And I
have never .... even once .... wondered about the worthwhileness
of what I am doing. I see people from the top of the mountain
to the bottom of the valley. I see them sad. I see them happy.
I see them needy. I see them seedy. I see them screwing up.
I see them straightening up. I see them struggling. I see
them soaring. I've seen God do some pretty extraordinary things
.... to some pretty ordinary people .... through some less-than-ordinary
people. And while I have never seen Jesus turn water into
wine, I have (as Orville McKay used to say) seen Jesus turn
beer into furniture.
And you
could, too. Your mother used to say to you: "What in
the name of God are you doing?" Well .... what in the
name of God are you doing?
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