Opening Convocation, September 4, 2002

More Than a Livelihood: Educating for Lives of Worth and Service

President Thomforde, Members of the Board of Regents, Faculty and Staff, Students, Parents, and Friends of the College:

The ancient Greeks had a pithy saying for most every occasion. This afternoon perhaps the operable and most apropos dictum might be a saying of the great philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras: érxØ d° toi ¥misu pantÒw , which might be translated into English as “well begun is half done,” or more literally, “the beginning is half of the whole thing.” Indeed, beginnings are special occasions, and all human beings, almost instinctively, have the feeling that a good beginning bodes well for the future of most any enterprise. For example, a sprinter standing in the blocks realizes that mere fractions of a second will separate first place from last, and that the entire race might literally depend on a good or a bad start. This afternoon we stand at the threshold, at the beginning of yet another, new school year. This is something with which every person in this room is intimately familiar. To be sure, all of you students have already begun 13, 14, 15 or more school years; and the people up here in the funny robes have actually made a profession of it! Consider my own case: Following twenty plus years as a student, today marks my 26th beginning at St. Olaf College. So, most of us in this room have been beginning school years virtually all of our lives! In a certain sense, the academy itself is embraced by beginnings--think about it--it's the only place that I know of that both begins and ends its year with a beginning, for we call our most important culminating event of the year, graduation, a commencement, or a beginning.

Thus the rhythm of the school year has become a kind of informing principle of our lives; I would venture to say that most of us here, in fact, measure our time by the academic year much more than we do by the calendar year. And, if you are anything like me, every new beginning school year brings mixed feelings: sadness, realizing that the more leisurely time of summer has fled so swiftly; anxiety at the realization of how quickly the tempo and the level of responsibility will accelerate; anticipation of seeing good friends again; and exhilaration at the thought of starting anew once more, meeting new people, facing new challenges. And for you first-year students out there, these feelings are surely only magnified, seeing that this beginning is a huge one, marking the commencement of a new and very significant chapter in your lives.

If a good beginning DOES, in fact, represent half of the whole, as the Greek saying goes, it is right and fitting that we take some time during the hectic sweep of things to ponder how best to begin this beginning and what our purposes for beginning yet again really are. So, fresh from the whirlwind of Week One and registration (which I trust you survived--even if barely), and anticipating in just a few more minutes the opening, or beginning of the magnificent new Tostrud Center, to be followed tomorrow by our first classes, let's take the next few minutes together to meditate briefly on the purposes of the enterprise we are about to begin again.

Like most colleges and universities, St. Olaf College has a mission statement, which attempts in a succinct and eloquent manner to outline our purposes. The faculty and staff of the College are, for the most part, intimately familiar with this statement, for it is generally the touchstone against which we form our plans and make our important decisions. I am sure that most of you have read it at one time or another; but I urge all of you, in the near future--perhaps even tonight before retiring--to take your catalog in hand and study the statement carefully. St. Olaf boasts of an education in the liberal arts, rooted in the Christian Gospel, and incorporating a global perspective, an education recognizing that “life is more than a livelihood,” one that focuses on “what is ultimately worthwhile and fosters the development of the whole person in mind, body, and spirit.” In so doing, we profess to produce graduates who are dedicated to leading lives of worth and service as citizens of the world.

These are, to be sure, noble, almost heady words, but they comprise a mission that faculty and staff here take with deep seriousness. The tradition residing in this statement and fostered here is a hallowed one indeed, harking back almost to the dawn of Western civilization. It finds its roots in the great civilizations of the ancient Greeks and Romans, civilizations that produced thinkers like Plato and Cicero, who called these arts “noble” and “liberal,” for they were considered pursuits worthy of free people living in free societies, whose study was designed to prepare citizens and leaders who might foster and preserve the communities in which they lived. This was a broad and general type of education, encompassing for the ancients both wisdom and eloquence, pragmatic perhaps only in the sense that its products were prepared to meet the challenges of their societies in uncommon ways.

This kind of education was no less controversial among some of the ancients than it is in our world today, and for precisely the same reason: an education based on the liberal arts does not, for the most part, teach people to DO anything! This fact can be a little scary for students, and certainly more than a little disquieting for parents who are shelling out thousands upon thousands of dollars in support of such an enterprise. I know this fact all too well, and from intimate personal experience. I began studying Latin at the age of 13; by the time I was 16 I had, if you can believe it, fallen in love with it (I was very weird!); by 17 and graduation time I was determined to spend the rest of my life studying the classics. You might imagine the reaction of my mother, a single parent living in a blue-collar environment, educated only through the 8th grade, and supporting us by waiting on tables, when her 17-year old son, the first and only person in our entire extended family ever to attend college, declared proudly that I was going to major in Greek and Latin! “ What can you DO with that?” she thundered. I must confess I stood speechless.

Nearly 35 years later, I'm still majoring in Greek and Latin, and you can't imagine--nor can I count--how many times that same question--from friends, students, parents--has thundered in my ears, “But what can you DO with that?” I've long since learned, however, that for people engaged in the liberal arts, that's actually the wrong question. We choose to ask rather, “What can you BE with that?” And our aspiration and assertion is that, building on a solid foundation of the liberal arts, you can BE almost anything you want or need to be. Obviously we eschew the narrow technical training that would still enable students to pursue a career, but in what we believe would be a much less satisfying and satisfactory way. For example, students wishing to become nurses or musicians could simply enroll in a nurses' training program or in a conservatory; and, to be sure, they might become excellent nurses or musicians per se. But that's not really good enough to our way of thinking: we want nurses and musicians who are not only trained excellently in their own specialties, but who have the broad wisdom offered by liberal studies, wisdom that will inform their own specialties far beyond technical competency. Thinkers like Cicero, and thousands upon thousands who followed him in this tradition, believed that these kinds of people would be those who would turn out being the most valuable citizens and leaders in their communities.

Indeed, the third pillar of our mission, the incorporation of a global perspective is actually the logical extension of this education for citizenship in the community, for in today's shrinking world, where the push of a button can send to the other side of the world an email greeting--or a weapon of mass destruction, our students must not only learn to be good citizens of their neighborhoods, cities, or states, but also responsible citizens of the global community.

The second pillar of our mission statement--rootedness in the Christian Gospel--is, perhaps, the one that, in combination with the others, provides the most interesting wrinkle and lends greatest distinctiveness. There can be no question that the ancients understood and appreciated the concept of a life of worth and service to others and to the community at large. But the radical message of Jesus of Nazareth, whose essence can be captured in his Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind...and you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” moves far beyond anything the noble humanism of the ancients had imagined. Jesus not only preached a gospel of love, but also actualized that preaching through his deeds on earth. His life on earth represented one continuous example of love of and service to his neighbor, culminating in his redemptive sacrifice on the cross, the ultimate expression of one man's love for another. But we need not look only to that ultimate act of love to take our cue, an act that is, thankfully, out of the realm of possibility for most of us; only a few hours before his crucifixion, Jesus left for his followers a most beautiful and instructive example to emulate. Hear St. John's account (13: 3-17, 34-35):

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash his disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.” When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Amen, Amen I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them... A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

To my way of thinking, there are few, more powerful narratives in the Gospel. I think we sometimes forget, because we have lived so long within the Christian tradition, just how radical such an action was. I cannot imagine, in my wildest dreams, Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, or for that matter Plato or Cicero, ever washing the feet of their followers--can you? Such an act would have utterly flabbergasted them, as it did, frankly, Peter and the other Apostles. Like so many words and deeds of Christ, these actions turn the normal order of the world topsy-turvy and focus our attention in hitherto unimagined ways. What kind of god washes the feet of the creatures he created? Zeus? Jupiter? Juno? Athena? But this is exactly what the God-Man did, and what we, as followers of Christ, are called, indeed expected, to do also. It is precisely this mandatum novum, this new commandment, this “call” from God to us to love one another as we are loved by him--in essence the centerpiece of the Gospel--that transforms the tradition of the liberal arts into something radically different from the traditional model.

For one “rooted in the Christian Gospel,” response to God’s call is motivated by the gratitude for the gracious gift of God’s love and forgiveness; in turn, this gratitude motivates us to use our gifts and abilities to serve others. In this way, all relational spheres--spouse, parent, child, friend, workplace, citizen, and others--are “callings” through which people respond to God’s call with lives of love and service. In this view, life becomes “more than a livelihood”; mundane actions shaped by myriad social relations through which individuals engage the lives of others are “ultimately worthwhile.” One’s job is not merely a place to make money; it is primarily a place to serve the larger community. All social interactions pose opportunities for “unselfish service to others,” “places of responsibility,” locations from which to promote love and justice in the world. *

What I’ve just now described is, in a nutshell, the description of the Christian, distinctively Lutheran, doctrine of vocation, in President Thomforde’s words taken from his inaugural address, “a response to God’s call upon individuals and communities to serve one’s neighbor, to care for creation, to live in community, and to praise God through one’s every day work, in the actual circumstances of one’s everyday relationships.” Such a doctrine of vocation is indeed fundamental to the identity of this College. Quoting again from our mission: “In the conviction that life is more than a livelihood, [a St. Olaf education] focuses on what is ultimately worthwhile and fosters the development of the whole person in mind, body, and spirit...Through its curriculum, campus life, and off-campus programs, [St. Olaf] stimulates its students’ critical thinking and heightens their moral sensitivity; it encourages them to be seekers of truth, leading lives of unselfish service to others; and it challenges them to be responsible and knowledgeable citizens of the world.”

Well, at this point, you're probably getting a bit impatient with me, aren't you? I can see a few of you squirming out there; a few others dozing off--how is all this philosophical, theological meditation pragmatically relevant to me on the eve of our new school year? Let me attempt an answer. The act of discerning how best to live out this call to love and service is, like most worthwhile things in human existence, a difficult and painstaking process, one that can, and often does last a lifetime, as people's lives and their careers change through the course of years. The good news, however, is that one can respond to the call no matter one's station in life, one's job, one's profession. You don't need to be a pastor, a priest, a social worker, a pro bono lawyer, or a Peace Corps worker to answer this call. Auto workers on the line, corporate executives, sales representatives, teachers, custodians, college presidents, electricians, provosts, mail carriers, street sweepers, doctors, IRS accountants--and yes, even students--can respond to the call through the ways in which they live out their lives on a daily basis.

All too often, however, we human beings have a tendency to look beyond the present opportunities, to barter the present reality for some hoped-for future possibility. We elect to put our lives on hold, somehow thinking that our present situation is merely a training ground or a preparation for the “real thing” which is just around the corner. For want of a better name, we might call this disease, “the denial of living a real life syndrome.” The disease is widespread throughout the world; its causes are particularly endemic to college life, and St. Olaf is no exception: a heavy workload, late hours, outside pressures, total immersion into one's books. The symptoms are readily identifiable--I've seen them hundreds of times; they start to appear about midterm time: a dazed look in the eye, a sour look on the face, fits of depression, the feeling that your years spent in college are not actually real life, but rather a facsimile that will somehow prepare you for real existence later. Be on guard, for once infected, the disease generally lingers. In graduate or professional school, it only becomes more severe, with the patient desperately frustrated to get out from under all those exams, assignments, and dissertations, all to secure that first big job. But once in that position, the infected subject still pines away in the belief that somehow life isn't yet complete--that starting salary is just too small; “I've got to get a raise, so that I can pay off my loans, buy a bigger house, a better car; once I get those things, I'll really start living.” But you know what comes next, don't you? Once our subject secures that raise, that bigger house, that better car, there is yet something else needed to make life really “real.”

“The beginning is half of the whole.” Tomorrow we begin a new school year. In the cycle of our regular calendar year, New Year's Eve is a special day of celebration, a time to “ring out the old and ring in the new.” We watch the crowds at Times Square on TV, and participate in the big countdown as the clock strikes midnight. We make New Year's resolutions. By analogy, today is our New Academic Year's Eve. Tomorrow marks a new beginning for all of us, and presents us all with a chance to “ring out the old and ring in the new.” Last weekend, in his welcome address to new students, President Thomforde pointed out that this might be a good occasion for them to discard some baggage that they have carried around with them in their past. Indeed, this is an opportunity for both new and returning students, not to mention faculty and staff, to put aside things that have transpired in the past, and to look forward to new horizons. And in doing so, let me suggest a few “New Year's Resolutions” for us all: to begin this new year in the best and most dedicated manner possible, realizing that a good start goes a long way in effecting a successful finish; in beginning, to keep always before our eyes the noble mission of St. Olaf College, the ultimate reason why every single one of us is here today; to be open to and eager for learning, learning of all sorts, the learning that the noble, liberal arts offer in abundance and at every turn; to work, through our several vocations, to become servant-leaders, following the example of Christ, who, though Lord and Master, deigned humbly to wash the feet of his followers; to begin thinking intentionally about what it means to be a servant-leader not only in our college community, but in the world at large; in the humdrum of daily routine, when things get difficult, tedious, and trying, to resist falling victim to the denial of living a real life syndrome, i.e., to live our lives daily to their fullest extent in the realization that this is the life to which we are currently called, that this life is real--the only life we actually have, and that it is through this life that we have the opportunity to express our gratitude to our Creator through love and service to our friends and neighbors.

Ambitious resolutions, you say. Indeed, but beginnings are not occasions for tentativeness and timidity. Let us be bold, let us be ambitious, let us be determined. And just think--if we can manage somehow to live out these resolutions, oh, what a glorious year it will be for all of us. What more is there left to say now but “Happy New Year!”

James M. May

Provost and Dean of the College

September 4, 2002

* This paragraph is borrowed largely from St. Olaf’s recent grant proposal to the Lilly Foundation’s program on the Theological Exploration of Vocation. The principal author of this section of the proposal is Professor Douglas Schuurman, Department of Religion.