Diana Hayes Address, Graduate Commencement, 5/21/05

Madame President, Faculty and Administrators, honored guests, and, most importantly, graduates of the centennial Class of 2005. I am honored to be asked to say a few words to you today and, yes, they will be only a few for I know you have more to look forward to than yet another speech. But I would just like to share a few of my thoughts regarding the world in which we find ourselves today.

Some of you, perhaps, are planning to continue with your graduate studies while others of you have reached the end of your years as a student and are looking forward to new worlds of opportunity. The world of work awaits you, and as a former eternal student myself, I know those jobs are important, if only to pay off all of those student loans that you have accumulated!

What kind of world are you moving into today? We live in a world that is vastly different from that of your parents or even of your friends who, perhaps, chose other avenues of life after high school and undergraduate studies. Many of the possibilities and opportunities, which seemed so bright even just a few years ago, now seem to have dulled and darkened, and moved out of our reach.

We are a nation at war today and probably will be for many years to come. Perhaps you have friends or relatives who are right now in Afghanistan, Iraq or some other zone of strife around the world. Let us keep them and their families in our hearts today. We are also a part of a world growing smaller everyday as we communicate by phone, text messaging, and email at speeds once unthinkable with major urban areas in Europe as well as in remote towns and villages in Africa and South America.

We are a people seeking our way in the aftershock of terrorist attacks, war, hunger and illness, more war, religious and cultural strife, as well as the ongoing ills of sexism, racism, and classism, a list that seems almost endless. But we are and always have been a people of hope and a people of faith. How that faith is lived out in the years to come is being hotly contested throughout the US in classrooms, business offices, legislative arenas at the state and local level, Congress and the federal courts. At times, we seem to be so caught up in debating which religious expression is right, which way we should live in response to our faith, how we should act and treat each other that we seem to have forgotten the simplest truth: which is that we were created by love for love and that, truly, is all that matters. Love one another. Let me say it again, love one another. Three simple words with a depth of meaning that for many are impossible to fully grasp. For love is not simple. All of us learn the basic rudiments of love within our families but as we grow older and move out into the complex world, we find our understandings of and perhaps even our ability to love challenged in innumerable ways.

When I speak of love, I am not thinking of the increasingly crude and often vulgar displays that grace our TV and movie screens, nor am I thinking of love as it is sung and spoken about in hip-hop, rock, country western, r&b, or even the blues. Nor am I speaking of that impersonal but friendly feeling we have for those we know and interact with on a daily basis. No, I am speaking of the gut-wrenching, soul-shaking, transformative love that forces us to recognize and affirm the humanity of each and every human being on this earth, regardless of their race or ethnicity, their religious beliefs, their class status, or their gender or sexual orientation. I am speaking of agape, a love that shakes us to our foundations, that forces us to recognize that in this ever-changing, ever shrinking world in which we live today, we are all connected by the beating of our hearts and the breath in our lungs to each other. If we truly experience that kind of love, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to hate someone simply because of the color of their skin or how or even if they worship, or who they love, or what they can afford to wear or drive. These are of no importance in the face of the challenges facing you and me and everyone in our world today.

If I have any message today, it is that you try to remember what you have learned during your time here at St. Kate’s, the values that have been instilled in you which build upon the foundation that your parents and earlier teachers tried to lay. Remember the goodness of your fellow human beings, recognizing that we were created by love for love and thus have a right to the basic dignity and respect for our humanity bestowed upon all of creation. St. Kate’s is known for its outreach to those historically marginalized in our society and has been an exemplar of how to bring together traditional and non-traditional students in an atmosphere of learning and faith beneficial to all involved. It has served as a leader in the education of women who are taking on roles of significance politically, socially, religiously, and economically.
It is so easy today to get caught up in the money chase, especially with the cost of education rising as it is and the debts most students leave school with, but as you embark on the next phase of your lives, I hope you will think about those others who, though qualified, did not have the chances, the opportunities, the support you have had; think about those who may have been forced to drop out for financial or other personal reasons and are seeking to find their way back so as to accomplish the same goals you have accomplished today. Consider offering something of yourself, your time mentoring or tutoring, your experience guiding or nurturing the flame of hope within someone other than yourself. In doing so, know that you are simply continuing a tradition at St Kate’s and elsewhere where “each one teaches one; each one cares for one” and pay it back.
The reason we are able to celebrate this centennial year is because 100 years ago, a small group of religious women took a bold step others thought inappropriate; they created a college for women and young women enrolled, seeking lives beyond the restrictions of contemporary society. The same is asked of all of you today.

Some would argue that to love anyone other than yourself and those you already know is just sentimental claptrap. To succeed in this world, you have to think of yourself first and others later. The golden rule has been twisted to mean “do unto others before they do unto you first” but is that really the kind of world we want to live in? Are we not already suffering from that kind of me-first mentality? Rather, isn’t this what we have been preparing for all of our lives, to care for the least among us, the strangers and orphans in our midst, the helpless and ignored? To love others is indeed difficult; it is in many ways risky work. What are you risking? – yourself, your future, perhaps even your faith by reaching out to those who may reject, deny or strike out at you in their fear and anger. But we already know how to love those who think, act, and look like us. The challenge is to love the other, to put a human face on the other. This is what is asked of all of us, to make of this world a better one, a true kin-dom, a community of persons daring to reach out regardless of the risk.

I am the first and only one of four girls in my immediate family who went beyond high school. And as my mother used to say, I just kept on going and going and going, like the Energizer bunny. Although I earned that privilege through hard work and perseverance, I know that I could not have succeeded without that great cloud of witnesses upon whose shoulders I stood: teachers, ministers, family friends, and even complete strangers who over the years saw something in me that I could not myself see, and gave me their support, sometimes financially, but often and more importantly, in time, in prayer, in guidance, in mentoring. In return for what they did for me, I seek to reach out to others trying to find the way forward as well.

I challenge you to learn how to love your neighbor, recognizing that if we are truly honest, everyone is our neighbor. I urge you to walk justly, to seek righteousness, to have mercy, and to do good and in return your rewards will be immeasurable. Pass on the privileges you have earned and for which we honor you today to those hoping to follow in your footsteps; pass on the love to those who fear they cannot or will not be allowed to try, let alone succeed; pass on the joy of a life lived for others for in so doing you will live a life full of joy yourself building on the joy you, your friends and family are sharing today.

If we are to continue in life, we must be about the business of promoting life in every way we can. We cannot look the other way or assume we have the freedom not to get involved. We are too closely connected today for that escape. Although, to paraphrase Dickens, these truly are the times that try men’s and women’s souls, these are also the times in which the efforts of a few can affect the lives and futures of so many. Respond to life with love not hatred, with laughter rather than anger, in peace instead of war, and with hope instead of hopelessness. For as St Paul affirmed:

1 Corinthians 13
Though I speak with the tongues of humans and of angels,
But have not love; I have become sounding brass as a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and
Understand all mysteries and all knowledge, so I could move mountains,
But have not love; I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
And though I give my body to be burned,
But have not love; it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind,
Love does not envy.
Love does not parade itself; t is not puffed up;
Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own,
Is not provoked, it thinks no evil,
Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth,
Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things. For now we see in a glass darkly, but then face-to-face, now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am also known. And now abide faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

I congratulate all of you on the success you have made and, I know, will continue to make of your lives. I especially welcome the new PhD’s in physical therapy. As a person living with rheumatoid arthritis, I know the value of your professions and the hope you have brought to many through your work. Love one another.

Thank you and may God continue to bless you.