Graduating students, members of the HDS community, family, and friends took part in the Harvard Divinity School 2023 Multireligious Commencement Service.
The faculty speaker was David N. Hempton, Dean of the Faculty of Divinity, Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies, John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity.
The digital program for the Multireligious Commencement Service can also be viewed online.
The event took place May 24, 2023.
Full transcript:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
DAVID N. HEMPTON: Please, be seated.
[LAUGHTER]
Good afternoon, everyone, in this beautiful, beautiful May day. On behalf of the whole HDS Faculty, it's my great pleasure to welcome all our graduating students and their families and friends to this service of celebration and thanksgiving. Many of you have traveled from all over the United States and from distant parts of the world to be with us, so thank you for making the effort to come and celebrate with us, we are really delighted you're here. My sincerest greetings, also, to everyone who is following us online, we extend our thoughts to everyone today near and far as we celebrate our extraordinary class of 2023, we're grateful to all of you. So please allow me to be the first to congratulate those of you who will graduate tomorrow, the spectacular, beautiful, wonderful class of 2023. Let's join and give them round of applause.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
We, your faculty members, are extremely proud of you and all that you've accomplished during your years with us. We know we have taken a toll on your life expectancy--
[LAUGHTER]
--with demanding classes, late nights, all-night sessions, too much caffeine, frequent and relentless papers and exams, but you made it, you made it, congratulations.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
And now, we very much look forward to watching and benefiting from the work you will do in the world after you leave us. You will join a distinguished cast of HDS alums who have made a difference in the world of scholarship, ministry, creativity, and service. Following the conferral of degrees by Harvard University's president, Lawrence Bacow, in Tercentenary Theater tomorrow morning, we'll gather again one last time under this tent tomorrow afternoon to award your diplomas. But before all that happens, we are gathering with you this afternoon for this one last service of reflection, celebration, and above all, thanksgiving. I have been given the honor of addressing you one last time as Dean later in the service, so this year, we're all graduating together.
[LAUGHTER]
But now, I'm delighted, in true HDS fashion, we're coming together today across the many spiritual and religious traditions represented in this graduating class. This service will not look like any liturgy or ritual that many of you have ever experienced before--
[LAUGHTER]
--rather, it will look and feel like the class that is before us today, varied, eclectic, vibrant, talented, passionate, and, even at times, a little edgy--
[LAUGHTER]
--so thanks to all of you for helping us to begin our commencement exercises together in a spirit of gratitude, joy, and unity. After this service here today, and after the class photo, we'll continue this celebration with a reception and communal gathering, so I hope you will join us for some refreshments and convivial conversation under the tent on the other side, on the Francis Avenue side of the campus. So Congratulations Class of 2023, thanks to all of you who have loved and supported them all of their lives. It really does take a village of ancestors, grandparents, parents, families, friends, and supporters, so thank you all for what you have contributed.
So class of 2023, we are thankful for all you've accomplished already and for the difference I know you're going to make in the years ahead. I'm now very glad to let the service proceed, and I'll speak to you later.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
KAYLA BLYTHE BACH: Welcome to the 2023 Multifaith Commencement Service at Harvard Divinity School. Throughout this service, we will witness offerings from the sacred traditions and backgrounds of members of the graduating class, including songs, spoken words, and other modes of expression. Some might feel new to you, others might be familiar, each is a gift to all who are present, may we receive these offerings as such, with compassionate curiosity, intentional openness, and heartfelt gratitude.
As we begin, I invite each of you to take a deep breath, allow yourself to be fully present in this joyful moment. As we gather for this special occasion, we remember that we do so on the ancestral land of the Massachusetts people, the original inhabitants of the Boston-Cambridge area. We give our respect to the people of the Massachusetts tribe, past, present, and future, may we honor this land where Harvard is located, which remains sacred to the Massachusetts people.
Here, at Harvard Divinity School, we come from many diverse backgrounds and belief systems, injustice and instances of violence have shaped our lives in a variety of different ways, we have each been impacted differently by the global pandemic, depending on our social location and life circumstances, yet we are united in our determination to act for what is good in the face of atrocities and oppression. Together, we acknowledge and hold space for our pain, this includes the grief we feel as a community for the loss of our beloved classmate Judith Giller-Leinwohl last summer. In the midst of our pain, we also hold space for hope, our commitments to justice, benevolence, and healing are interwoven through our work and strengthen our resolve to move forward together. We not only seek to act for what is good, we dare to believe that goodness is possible even when it feels improbable.
To my fellow graduates, thank you for your devotion to that goodness. To you my peers and friends, I extend a heartfelt congratulations and a special welcome, welcome to this moment of commemoration in your life, may you feel joy, welcome to the end of one chapter and the beginning of all that is yet to come, may you find rest. To all who are present in this space, please remember this, you are welcome here. May we go forth from this service today with courage, with peace, and with renewed faith in the existence of goodness. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
KEVIN ROSS: Friends, family, and beloved community, as we gather on these sacred grounds in celebration of this, our commencement from Harvard Divinity School, let us be mindful that-- to paraphrase the words of Maya Angelou-- we come as one, but we stand as 10,000, that on this shining New England day, we share this accomplishment with a cloud of invisible witnesses whose lives, legacies, successes, and sacrifices we all stand upon. Libation is an ancient tradition practice in many cultures, in our service, we will use the African approach of giving honor, reverence, respect, and recognition to our ancestors, whose shoulders we stand upon, our elders, whose shadows we walk in, by using water as a symbol to represent the continuity of life and to purify and nourish our souls. I ask that you join me in this sacred act by bringing to mind the names of your ancestors whose spirits you wish to honor this day, and when asked to, call their names. After each name has been spoken, we will all respond with the Yoruba word Ase-- let's say it, Ase--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: --which in English means, so be it or Amen. Let us begin. We pour libation in recognition of the creator and the source of all life, let us say, Ase.
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: We pour libation to mother Africa, the birthplace of all humanity, let us say together, Ase.
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: We pour libation to the remembrance of our ancestors who died during the Middle Passage, ancestors who suffered enslavement, our Native ancestors who face genocide, and our Jewish ancestors who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust, and all other ancestors who suffered and sacrificed at the boot heel of oppression, to our Native and African ancestors named in the Harvard and Legacy of Slavery report, let us say together--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: We pour libation to our benevolent ancestors, whose lives and legacies of abolition and legacies of resistance blaze freedom's trail, let us say together--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: And now, I invite you to call the name of your ancestors, whose spirits you wish to honor and join us in celebration today. And remember, as each name is called, we will all respond with--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: I want to begin by calling the name of the late great Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes, together--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
[CALLING NAMES]
n
KEVIN ROSS: And just so-- for those of you who are not aware-- we learned today that Tina Turner has crossed over into the ancestral realm today, so let's say together--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
[CALLING NAMES]
KEVIN ROSS: I think we've completed. And finally, we pour libation for the dreams in our hearts and the world we will create for generations yet unborn, let us say together--
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: Ase.
AUDIENCE: Ase.
KEVIN ROSS: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
[BELL DINGS]
[VOCALIZING]
[BELL DINGS]
[APPLAUSE]
OWEN YAGER: We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness, the deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman, with trap and poison, the statesman, with pen, the most of us, with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing, peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough and, perhaps, is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long-run. Perhaps, this is behind Thoreau's dictum, in wildness is the salvation of the world, perhaps, this is the hidden meaning of the wolf, long-known among mountains, but seldom perceived among us.
ESEDULLAH UYGUR: [NON-ENGLISH CHANTING]
JENNA RIFAI: In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, read in the name of your Lord who created man from a clot of blood, read, your Lord is the most bountiful one who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know, yet man behaves arrogantly because he thinks himself self-sufficient. Truly, all will return to your Lord, have you seen one who prevents a worshipper from praying?
EBONY WEST: The Lord will guide you always, God will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
NATHAN SAMAYO: Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations, you will be called repairers of broken walls, restorer of streets to dwell in.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Your love must surely be the answer to these questions that I have, but life love's throwing out his craziness. And though I'm told you have my back, sometimes I fall down, I don't know if I'll get up again. I lay my hands to rest, and hope I don't wake up again. All my life, I've been dreaming about it, like, every night, somewhere in this world, I can be free. And all my life, I've been dreaming about it, like, every night, somewhere in this world, I can be free, yeah.
A deeper source is what sustains me here, a firm ground in this abyss, and like a song, but sure of every note, I'll find out what my purpose is, I'll say, in the presence of now, in the still of the moment, not the stress of tomorrow-- in the presence of now, in the still of the moment, not the stress of tomorrow. And it's all my life, I've been dreaming about it, like, every night, oh, somewhere in this world, I can be free, yeah. All my life, I've been dreaming about it, like, every night, somewhere in this world, I can be free, yeah. I'm in your hands, I'm in your hands, I'm in your hands, I'm in your hands, I'm in your hands, in your hands, I'm in your hands, in your hands. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
ALIYAH COLLINS: "A Journey" by Nikki Giovanni, "It's a journey that I propose, I am not the guy nor a technical assistant, I will be your fellow passenger. Though the rail has been ridden, winter clouds covered, autumn's exuberant quilt, we must provide our own guideposts. I have heard from previous visitors, the row washes out sometimes and passengers are compelled to continue groping or turn back, I am not afraid. I am not afraid of rough spots or lonely times, I don't fear the success of this endeavor, I am Ra in a space, not to be discovered, but invented. I promise you nothing, I accept your promise of the same, we are simply riding a wave that may carry or crash. It's a journey, and I want to go."
KENASHIA THOMPSON: "If I can't do what I want to do, then my job is not to do what I don't want to do. It's not the same thing, but it's the best thing that I can do. If I can't have what I want to have, then my job is to want what I've got and be satisfied that, at least, there is something more to want. Since I can't go where I need to go, then I must go where the signs point, though always understanding, parallel movement isn't lateral. When I can't express what I really feel, I practice feeling what I can express. And none of it is equal, I know, but that's why mankind, alone, among the animals learns to cry."
PRABHROOP CHAWLA: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
One universal, creator, God, truth is the name, creative being personified by guru's grace, through these 52 letters, the three worlds and all things are described. These letters shall perish, they cannot describe the imperishable Lord. Wherever there is speech, there are letters, wherever there is no speech, there, the mind rests on nothing, he is in both speech and silence. No one can know him as he is, if I come to know the Lord, what can I say? what good does it do to speak? His expand spreads across the three worlds, and he's contained within it just like the banyan tree is contained within its seed, and the seed is contained within the banyan tree.
One who tries to the unknowable Lord, his dilemma gets resolved, and bit by bit, the mystery disappears. Turning away from the world, one's mind is pierced through with this mystery and one obtains the indestructible, impenetrable Lord. All religions and faiths have their scriptures and ways of knowing, to instruct their minds, people ought to study some sort of spiritual wisdom.
MONIQUE LANIER: It is the wrong of you, the leaving of chapels and arches, the slipping in moss and freeing from repentance. The layers of odor between each appearance come for me, I have kept your name in my bed, in places I say are dead so no one can find you in me, let us rest in the dark, the moat, your breasts, your arms, your ungodly hands. I'll tell you what it, it is your encampment around my curses, my ingratitude, your heft, your rock, your grit, your stay, it is how you brush your thumbs over my eyes, your freedom, your penetrating honor, your stake in the shifting ground under all the mistakes of my little history, you come when I call, painted and good, and every stance, sovereign. Before the beginning, in need of no confirmation, you hold it all deepest through and through, you hold it sure enough so I can let you deeper, and then deeper, yet-- and deeper, yet you stroke my hair and refugees find rest under the bruise that is your wing. Come for me, come for each honest wound with wild, tender, feral mercy, it is the this of you, the divine, delinquency of you come for me, it is the now that I am calling you.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
JAMES ARNOLD LEWIS: In times like those in which we currently find ourselves, it just makes sense-- it just makes sense to pay attention to wise guidance. Of late, I found myself turning to words attributed to the Apostle Peter, the words of Peter taken from 1Peter 4:8 go something like this, above all else, keep loving one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Troubles, injustices, evils and sins, they swarm all around us, anger, divisions, and fears abound, it is why hope is in such short supply. It is so hard to believe that anything is good, if only we could, so much easier to fuss and to cuss, it satisfies our flesh, and it suits us, but it does not resolve nor change a thing.
Perhaps, it is time to lift every voice and sing, to my country, it is of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee, I sing, sing to the Earth and heaven's ring as yet unheard, sing like a bird to raise a petitioning word to God, word, word of a land so sweet, yet soured by theft, sullied with compromises by men so bereft of vision, so smart, yet so lacking in wisdom that murder seems wise-- yes, murder and theft-- while proclaiming a loving creator who wept from above at the rise of our wealth and the demise of love. My country, you say that we're free, oh, lover of liberty, but to thee, truth stings.
Lift every voice and sing for joy over liberty from taxes, then to bring down the access on the freedoms of those who do not belong in some's estimation, but evil isms are wrong, sexism, racism, imperialism, weaponized theism, political fanaticism. You understand that, these are all key to growing the cynicisms, widening the schisms, while corrupting the prisms that we use to see that I so, so hate you because you first hated me. But with so much deep hatred, we'll never be free. Oh, why is it, my friends, that we cannot see that we will never receive the blessings of sweet liberty while stealing this land without any blame, while dividing this land to keep some in chains, while destroying this land and ignoring its pains?
Now, removing our histories to avoid feeling shame, casting lies as the truth, saying truths are the lies, dismantling what's good with hands raised to the sky, shouting, father, forgive us, we know now what we do, but we're chosen, we're special, we are reborn, anew. Lift every voice and sing, my country, it is we who rise now, awaken, we ask of thee the value, the cost of all being free. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, even from the evil isms, even in this land where so many have died for being born dark or for showing their pride, in this land, this land of deep, deep divide, in this land over which our loving God has cried, in this land where anger we do stoke by whistling for dogs, chanting, canceled and woke-- woke, four-letter word.
We must rise above by reviving another, I refer here to love. Love does indeed cover a multitude of sins, but lovers of God cannot be doers of hate. The rift's getting wider, no more time to wait on a city, even a shining city perched high upon a hill, all eyes fixed upon us-- oh, yes, they're watching us still-- be still and know-- know and believe we shall overcome, although we yet grieve our greed and our hatred. Our hates run so deep, but can we not dream, although we yet weep, and commit to let go of the ills that we keep? Think of the goodness that we all could bring to the table of love, at which, we, together, can sing, sing to the Earth, and even the very heavens will ring, announcing that we were all so wrong for we fail to acknowledge that we all belong.
But if we sing out to God, from the muck, we can wade, new plans can be laid and hope and space can be made for a new thing, yes, yes, a new thing where we together lift our voice, every voice, and sing about our country. Our country, it is of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee, we will sing to God for a love that will cover our multitude of sins, no time like this very hour for us to begin. Our country, America, of thee, we will scream to our present help, yes, the one who redeems to be our salvation, our peace from above. If we truly desire the rise of pure love, then unto our God, our precious King, our Redeemer, I plead with you now, let every voice sing.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) [INAUDIBLE]
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
BHAVI BHAGAT: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
The burning torch shines less brightly from afar than it does from up close, and very far away, there is no light at all, in the same way, elsewhere, there is only a little happiness and absolute happiness is only attained in the presence of God. The further one is from God, the less happiness is felt, one who desires liberation realizes, the further I am from God, the more suffering I will face, I will become miserable, but even the briefest connection with God provides much happiness. I then wish to develop an enduring connection with God, and by doing so, I will experience the purest form of happiness. One who thinks in this manner desires only the happiness of God and maintains a close connection with God in every circumstance, such a person is intelligent.
[APPLAUSE]
JAXON WASHBURN: I know the goodness of God, and I also know the hurts of this life. Of the very few things I truly know, the most certain-- drawn from the most vivid and inexpressible experience of my life-- is this, God is love, and our becoming so is what matters. I pray we may gain courage and faith to affirm the choice we made, to remember that we are active and alive and meeting suffering here because God knew we could, and because we believed we could. Let us choose well the theology with which we frame our experience, let us trust ourselves and God, asking continually for the help which is good, let us love each other, mourn with each other, and sacrifice fear for courage, let us seek reality and truth, forgiving ourselves and each other, learning to help ourselves and each other as we can, let us become more like our God who is good.
[APPLAUSE]
MORGAN CURTIS: We come to honor our losses and the world's grief, we know that we grieve that which we dearly love and that the depth of our pain is a reflection of our interconnectedness with others.
EMMA THOMAS: To name just a few of the many losses and griefs we have carried together during our time at HDS--
MORGAN CURTIS: --the global COVID pandemic, the lives lost and lives changed--
EMMA THOMAS: --multiple wars across the globe--
MORGAN CURTIS: --the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria--
EMMA THOMAS: --the loss of human rights, particularly for women and queer folks, both here, in the US, and around the world--
MORGAN CURTIS: --the unprecedented rise in refugees seeking safety and the hostility they face at far too many borders--
EMMA THOMAS: --ongoing occupations and the difficulty of surviving in politically-contested territories--
MORGAN CURTIS: --the thousands of human remains of Indigenous people and enslaved people of African descent still being held in the Harvard Museums--
EMMA THOMAS: --ongoing climate chaos and the escalating impacts on those that have done the least to cause it, both human communities and the wider natural world--
MORGAN CURTIS: --ever rising gun violence, both mass shootings and police killings--
EMMA THOMAS: --and all other instances of violence and ongoing structural inequities driven by white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and other forms of oppression here at Harvard, in this country, and around the world--
MORGAN CURTIS: --and of course, during our time at HDS, all of us have lost people dear to us, beloved ones we count spiritually present here with us today, including our classmate Judith Giller-Leinwohl, whom we lost last summer.
EMMA THOMAS: We'll hold a moment now of quiet in honor of all who are gone and all we have lost, and then we invite you to join us in singing our way forward.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) I trust deeply in my life as a prayer, may I be well-used, may I be well-used for healing, liberation, and repair. I trust deeply in my life as a prayer, may I be well-used, may I be well-used for healing, liberation, and repair. I trust deeply in my life as a prayer, may I well-used, may I be well-used for healing, liberation, and repair. I trust deeply in my life as a prayer, may I be well-used, may I be well-used for healing, liberation, and repair. I trust deeply in my life as a prayer, may I be well-used, may I be well-used for healing, liberation, and repair. One more time. I trust deeply in my life as a prayer, may I be well-used, may I be well-used for healing, liberation, and repair.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
JENN LOUIE: To the spiritual and not religious, or to the souls who are seeking and questioning within or beyond the boundaries and constructs of religious institutions, I offer you this poetic excerpt, "Song of the Soul" by Khalil Gibran, "In the depths of my soul, there is a wordless song, a song that lives in the seat of my heart, it refuses to melt with ink on parchment, it engulfs my affection in a transparent cloak and flows, but not upon my lips. How can I sigh it? I fear it may mingle with earthly ether. To whom shall I sing it? It dwells in the house of my soul in fear of harsh ears. When I look in my inner eye, I see the shadow of its shadows, when I touch my fingertips, I feel its vibrations, the deeds of my hands heat its presence as a lake must reflect the glittering stars, my tears reveal it as bright dew drops, reveal the secret of a withering rose. It is a song composed by contemplation and published by silence, and shunned by clamor and folded by truth, and repeated by dreams and understood by love, and hidden by awakening and sung by the soul, it is the song of "love.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
REBECCA TWEEDIE: It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish, in our lifetime, only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is the way of saying that, the Kingdom always lies beyond us, no statement says all that could be said, no prayer fully expresses our faith, no confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness, no program accomplishes the church's mission, no set of goals and objectives includes everything.
EOIN LYONS: This is what we are about, we plant the seeds that one day will grow, we water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise, we lay foundations that will need further development, we provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities, we cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
VIRGINIA SCHILDER: This enables us to do something and to do it very well, it may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for Gods grace to enter and to do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the expert builder and the worker, we are workers, not expert builders, ministers, not messiahs, we are prophets of a future not our own.
[APPLAUSE]
Blessed are your children, God, blessed are the sacred, weird ones, blessed are those who are different, blessed are the ones who are too loud, too build, too wild, too much. Blessed are your children, God, blessed are those who struggle with self-harm and self-hatred, blessed are those who strive to accept the person they see in the mirror, blessed are those who strain each day just to survive. Blessed are your children, God, blessed are those who persist, blessed are those who persevere, blessed are those who prove to the world each day that diversity is divine.
Blessed are your children, God, blessed are those whose ancestral queer footsteps we walk in, blessed are those who marched and marched and marched before us, blessed are those who dare to dream and dare to demand justice. Blessed are your children, God, every single one of them, and blessed are we as we tirelessly, courageously, imaginatively cocreate a world with you, a world where all people know and feel and have love, all sexualities, all genders, all gender expressions, all families, all bodies.
Holy One, guide us toward your strange, boundless, undefinable love. And when we are met with the sneers, side eyes, and shame of the world, remind us who is the one who walks this journey with us, that's you, the one who has shared their every norm, every box, every shackle that holds us down and calls us to do the same. Amen.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(NON-ENGLISH SINGING)
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
DAVID N. HEMPTON: Before I begin, I just want to say a big thank you to all participants, creators, players, singers, organizers, helpers, it made this really a beautiful community occasion, thank you so much, everybody. Let's give it up for all the people.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
All of us here today are to some extent survivors of the COVID pandemic. Though many of you have suffered loss or illness or mental health issues of varying severity, we have all been through some hard times, and we have needed one another. One of my favorite activities during the pandemic was to walk around our campus, during its renovation and recreation, when it was a building site, watching the old stripped bare for conservation and the new slowly rising was somehow therapeutic. Quite often, in my perambulations, I was accompanied by my young granddaughter Hadley, who was just over 2 at the time. Hadley had a name for all the trucks and cranes, and the workers played along with her with waves and friendly comments. Hadley assumed the role of site supervisor--
[LAUGHTER]
--and she enjoyed the attention. On Easter Sunday, in April, she and I went for another walk along a beach in Cape Cod, we were the only two people on the beach. The beach ran along a fast-moving tidal inlet, and as the tide went out, it left little sand islands separated by water channels of varying depths. Hadley, dressed in boots, and an oversized coat, hair flowing in the wind, loved playing a game of island hopping, depending on me to roll when the water was too deep to mess with, she took my hand as she moved from sand island to sand island. And when she jumped along an uneven rocky pier, reaching out to the sea, she reached from my hand once again, the greater the sense of danger, the tighter she took my hand.
On the way back home, she started to collect little golden shells for her mother. I was allowed to help in her curation of shells, but my offerings were subject to ruthless quality control.
[LAUGHTER]
As my shells were tossed aside for being too white, too flawed, or simply because she had not picked them herself--
[LAUGHTER]
--in quality-control mode, Hadley is not a soft touch.
[LAUGHTER]
Throughout this little expedition, I knew that Hadley depended on me and trusted on me to assess danger levels, the more adventurous she became, the more she needed me, she trusted me, and her trust freed her to take more risks. During our beach walk, I was also too aware of how much this beach had changed over the last decade, and I could not help thinking about what this beach would look like in 20 or 30 years time, would it even be there? would the row of Cape houses framing the beach survive the rising sea levels? would Hadley ever walk this beach with her own children or her own grandchildren?
As these questions crowded in, I began to think more about Hadley's childlike trust in her grandfather, what if I was only trustworthy in the playful games of island hopping, but not really trustworthy in helping to save the beach itself? what if she looks back on her grandfather, not as a caring companion, but as a careless collaborator in the destruction of her favorite place? I thought of this little episode when I recently attended an event during Climate Justice Week at Harvard Divinity School, hosted by Terry Tempest Williams, our writer-in-residence, and the climate activist, Rebecca Solnit, about 40 students gathered around the outside fireplace, just over there, to talk about climate change, and at the end of the evening, the group agreed together that love and hope were better motivators for change than anger and pessimism. And then we were all asked, what did we love, I said, I love my granddaughter, but was troubled by what my generation was doing to love her.
The next day, I read a book on my bedside table by Jenny Odell entitled Saving Time-- Discovering A Life Beyond The Clock. The main message of the book is that, we've created a world centered on work, the office clock, or the profit motive, she advocates for different ways to experience time, inspired by pre-industrial cultures, ecological cues, and geological timescales that can bring within reach a more humane responsive way of living, as planet-bound animals, we live inside shortening and lengthening days, alongside gardens growing, birds migrating, cliffs eroding, the stretchy quality of waiting and desire, the way the present may suddenly feel marbled with childhood memory, the slow but sure procession of a pregnancy, the time it takes to heal from injuries, we're urged to become stewards of these different, more natural rhythms of life, in which time is not reducible to standardized units, and instead, forms the very medium of possibility.
What got my attention in this book is the way in which our very existence in space and time has become dominated by a culturally-constructed chronos, we clock in and clock out of our lives like factory workers, punching in and out of industrial time machines built to measure every single minute for purposes of surveillance and remuneration. Odell writes, "I believe that a real meditation on the nature of time, unbound from its everyday capitalist incarnation, shows that neither our lives nor the life of the planet is a foregone conclusion. In that sense, the idea that we could save time by recovering its fundamentally irreducible and inventive nature could also mean that time would save us."
So what's the point of all this? Each of you graduating students are in an interstitial moment between one way of measuring time by semesters, credits, term papers, deadlines, and another measurement of time, the time of your own choosing, how will I make my life meaningful and choreograph my own days? You know that your own time at HDS was not just measured by the academic clock, you had peer group and mentoring relationships, you had time to experiment and think and discover things about yourself, you became critics and activists and passionate advocates for creation care and human flourishing, you had your hopes and aspirations refined by new knowledge and hard experience, you also found open time to simply contemplate, to dream, and catch up with yourself and identify your true feelings.
So what comes next? I'm sorry to say that the next phase of your lives may not be easy, my generation has left you with many troubling challenges. You may be thinking of people like me the way I once thought of the generation that bequeathed the Irish troubles to me and my fellow graduating students half a century ago in Belfast, why didn't they see it coming? I thought, what could they-- why could they not see that society is built around exclusive cultural identities, unequal access to economic resources, and partisan political domination could not survive peacefully for very long? why were they so resistant to change when the grim consequences of sectarian paralysis and outright violence were so clearly visible?
Over time, I came to see that, opinions based on accusation and blame were not really change agents, in truth, we were all complicit in a problem that was centuries in the making. The real question was, could we reckon with past evils we had not created and present consequences we could not avoid and hopes for a better future we could still choose? For us, whether we are reckoning with a legacy of slavery and racism at Harvard and beyond or with impending climate and environmental disasters, this is a moment for saving time and saving ourselves and the planet that we relentlessly abuse.
In conclusion, I want to say, honestly, I have more confidence in this wonderful graduating class than any other class at Harvard, it has been an extraordinary privilege getting to know many of you, and I have this opportunity to speak to all of you this afternoon. Someday, when you get the chance to hold the hand of a dear child you care about or one of your own beloved children or grandchildren, make sure you can look them in the eye and know that they can trust you to keep them safe in both small things and big things, spending your time and soulful stewardship of this beautiful broken world and offering your hand changes everything, there's no better use of your time, it will save you.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
(SINGING) May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, may the rains fall soft upon your feet, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of their hand. May her kind friend be near you, may blue be the skies above, may green be the grass you walk upon, may true be the hearts that love you, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of the hand. May the road rise to meet you, may the wind at your back may the sun shine warm upon your face, may the rains fall soft upon your feet, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of the hand.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
JUSTIN JANESKO: Hi, friends.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
JUSTIN JANESKO: This verse comes from Aryadeva, a third century Buddhist monk and scholar, from his treaties, The 400 Verses, and it's a verse that was communally transformed into a chant, and we're going to offer it to you today, and we invite you to chat with us.
[INAUDIBLE CHATTER]
(SINGING) If you like being together, then why do you dislike partying? doesn't an experience show that meeting and [INAUDIBLE] go together? If you like being together, then why do you dislike partying? doesn't experience show that meeting and partying go together? If you like being together, then why do you dislike partying? doesn't experience show that meeting and partying go together? If you like being together, then why do you dislike partying? doesn't experience show that meeting and partying go together?
JUSTIN JANESKO: Last time.
(SINGING) If you like being together, then why do you dislike partying? doesn't experience show that meeting and partying go together?
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
PHYLLIS PAWA: This is adopted from a prayer traditionally offered at the end of a study of a sacred text.
ANNA EISENSTAT: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
We will return to you, divinity studies, and you will return to us, our mind is on you, divinity studies, and your mind is on us, we will not forget you, divinity studies, and you will not forget us, not in this world, and not in the next. May it be your will, our God and the God of our ancestors, that we should be loyal to your Torah in this world and in the world to come, please, make it sweet, God, our God, the words of your Torah in our mouths and in the mouths of our community of learners, and it should be that we-- all of us, our children, and the children of our community of learners-- that we should all know your name and learn your Torah.
ALIZA ABOLAFIA: We give thanks before you, Hashem, our God and God of our ancestors, for you gave us a share among those who sit in the study hall, for we arrived early for words of Torah and not for words of emptiness, we work and receive a reward, we run towards eternal life and not to a pit of desolation. May it be your will, Hashem, my God, just as you--
[LAUGHTER]
May it be your will, Hashem, my God, just as you have helped me to complete divinity studies, so too, may you help me to start other track dates and books and to complete them, to learn and to teach, to observe and to enact, and to fulfill all the words of the teaching of your Torah with love, and may the merit of all of the Tannaim and Amoraim and Torah scholars be present for me and for my descendants to ensure that the Torah does not depart from my mouth and from the mouths of my descendants for all eternity.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TEDDY HECKMAN MAYNARD: (SINGING) I was born by the river, in a little tent, just like the river, I've been running ever since. It's been a long, long time coming, but I know, a change is going to come, oh, yes, it will. It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die, oh because I don't know what's up there, up there beyond the sky. It's been a long, a long time coming, but I know, change is going to come, oh, yes, it will. Well, I go to the movies, and I go downtown, somebody there keep telling me, don't hang around. It's been a long, a long time coming, but I know, a change going to come, oh, yes, it will.
Oh, and then, I go to my brother, I say, brother, won't you help me please? Then he goes and knock me down, knock me back down on, on my knees. Oh, there have been times when I thought I wouldn't last too long, yeah, but right now, I think I've got the strength to carry on. It's been a long, a long time coming, but I know, change is going to come, oh, yes, it will. Yeah, yeah, it's been a long, long time coming, but I know, a change is going to come.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
[RHYTHMIC DRUMMING]
SPEAKER 1: Drums, Atehia Bailly, Isaiah Briggs, Xavier L. Sayeed, the HDS commencement choir is conducted by Christopher Hossfeld, director of music and ritual, members of the choir include, Jude Ayua, MTS candidate, Sophia Doescher, MDiv '23, Courtney Godwin, MDiv '23, Elsa Kunz, MTS '23, Virginia Schilder, MDiv '23, Amelia Shenstone, MDiv '23, Ebony West, MDiv '23, Eve Woldemikael, MDiv candidate, sponsors, Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life.
SPEAKER 2: Copyright, 2023, the President and Fellows of Harvard College.