Graduation’s gift

The Strenuous Life

You have to understand, the end of the school year always makes us, your teachers, pensive. Educational adrenaline ramps up in the month of May as the fresh heat of the month mixes with the smell of yearbook ink. While the next grade level awaits most of our students, there’s you, the about-to-graduate, standing in our doorways ready to say goodbye, ready to leave. We teachers have much left to say to you but we worry that we’ll resort to hyperbolic clichés or just ramble on trying to get out one last lesson, one last imperative that we hope you’ll remember. When we start that uncomfortable shifting of feet, please just listen for a moment more.

You see, your teachers have worked together the past few years. We’ve worked like a cadre of masons, like conspiratorial bricklayers who first helped you build a foundation tall enough so that you could see over the wall of youth. Now that foundation takes the shape of a tower and far surpasses the wall as it enters the sky of success. You decide how tall it becomes.

You’ve learned several things in our hallways and classrooms. You learned never to be a bystander, you learned to work hard, you learned to make sure your integrity is on full display at all times and more. Soon, graduation speakers will implore you to embrace holy concepts, but we’ll shy away from philosophy for just a bit and give you one specific idea to consider. It’s one simple act that allows you to acquire one of the most fleeting attainments of adulthood—peace.

In order to gain peace—that’s the confidence to stand alone with your thoughts—try one lasting thing: See the marginalized. Today’s society needs it.

Life will always have the poor, the quirky, the disregarded, the simple. It will always have the down-on-yourluck, the unfortunate, the rejected. The marginalized. The ones the rest of us so easily look past.

When you walk past these folks without even a glance, you don’t feel right. It’s like being under one of the awful gray, purgatory skies. You go to bed with a hot coal in the pit of your stomach. It’s a coal made of apathy, disdain, and inaction, and there may be some disgust or even hate mixed with it. It burns until you become numb. But when you invite the marginalized out of the shadows, it’s like a cool fan blowing on a hot summer day. You gain the benefit of a blameless sleep and the confidence to stand alone with your thoughts.

You see, our culture today seems to walk blithely into the morass. We’ve surrounded ourselves with angry and demeaning Tweets coupled with a media gone mad. But it doesn’t have to be that way. When you demean, when you don’t see, you dehumanize, and oh Lord, have the world’s greatest atrocities occurred when we’ve allowed that one evil ingredient to seed and grow.

There is a bare-knuckle aspect of life that you will definitely experience. But you must reserve those moments for taking a stand about your unmovable core beliefs. You should certainly hold your ground for your core, but you can experience that type of feet-planting without uttering one negative word about another person. Argue ideals. Never argue personalities. Don’t let policy take the place of personhood. Think of the fictional Atticus Finch. Think of the historical Abraham Lincoln.

You’ll hear it in politics a lot but it’s even more prevalent in our own backyards. When we demean, we relegate a human being to invisibility, a less-than-human existence.

There’s a great story about Theodore Roosevelt’s father, a story that impacted the future president when he was still young. The elder Mr. Roosevelt held a magnificent reception for the social elite of New York. Showing up in their finery, the elite enjoyed lively discussion that featured banter about high-falutin’ and important things.

Finally, when it was time for dinner, Mr. Roosevelt called the party’s attention to the doors of the dining room. Welcoming his guests, he announced the serving of dinner. When he threw open the doors, his guests gasped at what they beheld. Cruelly crippled and disfigured children occupied every seat at the large dining table. Mr. Roosevelt, turning to his guests, told them he did not invite his guests so that he could feed them. Instead, he invited his guests so that they would feed those children. Soon, the New York Orthopedic Dispensary and Hospital was fully funded. Then, the Children’s Aid Society, then the Newsboys Lodging House, then more.

As you hear advice from your many well-meaning relatives, friends, and us, your teachers, please remember this one specific act: See the marginalized and invite them into the light. Take the time to walk outside your well-established concentric zones and inhale the fresh air of new relationships. With that one small act, you will enrich your life, expand your horizons, fill your soul. And your teachers will be proud.

Instead of going to bed with the heat of regret in your stomach, sleep with the cool air of confident thoughts. That’s the graduation gift we wish for you. The gift of peace.