Delivered by Emilie M. Townes, dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School on May 11, 2018 to the 2018 graduating class.
i have no new words for you that you do not already know
that you have not already heard
that you not already seen or tried to live,
if only occasionally sometimes
so instead, i will remind you of some things and wish you well as you go
i’m on airplanes a good bit
one of the things that the flight attendants always do is some form of the safety check with the passengers
i am always struck when this part of the check is given: in the event of loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop from above. Tighten the mask by pulling on the straps like this. If you are traveling with a child, place your mask on first before assisting them…in other words: save yourself so you can save others!
graduates, there has been a loss of pressure and your masks have dropped
the world we live in that we both help create and try to survive
in, is spinning toward crisis in so many areas of our lives
our religious communities
if we are fortunate enough to find one that is that marvelous blend of being welcoming and also holding us accountable
our neighborhoods
that may be more like enclaves, though we hope there are places where we learn how to get proximate with one another
our schools
that we hope do more than indoctrinate, but help us learn how to learn, ask questions, keep growing, and never settle for what we see and feel now as God’s final word in creation
our homes
if we have them, we hope for a place that gives us respite for the journey rather than force us into narrow casings of being-ness
you came here looking for something
and it was not a uniform something
so, with all that you know right now, i want to encourage you hold on to these 4 things:
first, get the right amount of wrong in your lives
i encourage you to perfect the fine art of being a holified pest in the halls of hatred and sorrow and fear-mongering
we have reached a time in this country where it’s become acceptable to hate people and call doing this faithfulness
don’t believe and don’t live it
please, please remember that what the world needs is love and compassion with a good mess of orneriness thrown in to help us stick to the things we know to be true and right about growing God’s good creation
second, do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief
this means, don’t be tempted into being or becoming a lone ranger
doing the work of faithfulness, whatever that may mean for you, requires friends and allies
friends to remind us that we are human
and allies to call us into account as we build strategies for justice, hope, and love in the worlds we live in
yes, see the grief and do not ignore it
but remember that heavy burdens should be shared and you can’t handle the vastness of grief in our world with a weak-willed dyspeptic alleluia
third, do not live your faithfulness in the abstract
active faith cannot be lived in a silo of saintliness
or a sideshow of intellectual religious fa la la
these things tend to lead us down the pathway to annihilation and building religious communities of complete, if not total, irrelevance
the new Jerusalem does not come in a compartmentalized people who disdain one another and sit in the hollows of their fears
your job is to read the times, call out injustice, suspect spirituality, and dubious intellectual gibberish in clear voices with sass and swag
finally, do not let anyone or anything convince you that hope is a trivial or trite thing to help guide your way
it’s hard out there
and it’s far too easy to fall into cynicism, doubt, nihilism, and despair
so i remind you that living on the wrong side of the tracks of hope does not grow pesky holy people, citadels of welcoming communities, or vibrant tomorrows
who speak out against the sewage drain of injustices we have roiling around us and in us in these days
for all that you have learned about deconstruction
i urge you to hold fast to being folks who build for you are not being called to be the poster children of the status quo of despair
or to practice an over-religified, solipsistic matterhorn
surrounded by the chants of inept kumbayas and sashaying alleluias
your ministry, whatever its character, matters and we need you
your humor
your passion and compassion
your intellect
your faults and your strengths
your love
your faith
your hope and more
the mask has dropped…