(For those of you not from NYC, "upstate NY" merely refers to anything north of New York City. And I should probably remind you that NYC is oh, pretty much as far south in the state of NY as you can get. In my opinion, Syracuse is actually about mid-state... but, as I am not a native New Yorker, my opinion in this won't matter much. However, I thought I'd clarify this tidbit for all you others out there who like your geographical knowledge a little more grounded in truth. Also, here's a map for your curiosity's convenience.)
Now, aside from the usual festivities of graduation weekend, there was one fairly sweet aspect of this graduation: Joe Biden gave the commencement address. Cool, no? Though it's hard to tell it's actually him, here's the picture I grabbed from up in the back-less bleachers. (The ceremony was 3.5 hours long, it took over an hour for the procession, and let me tell you -- that's a REALLY LONG TIME to sit in back-less bleachers! Also, this is why I need to get a new camera...)
He gave a pretty good address, which you can find the full transcript to here. For a school that's not exactly known for its commitment to social justice (must admit, when I think of Syracuse I usually first think of it as a really, really, really expensive school... a decent school, but mostly just ridiculously expensive), I appreciated him calling the students to action. He spoke of how even though this is a really tough time to enter the "real world", it's also a time filled with more opportunities to make a lasting impact than any other. He referred to it as an inflection point (think back to your physics class) -- an instance where you can truly change the direction or course of things. As he put it, "Throughout the span of history, only a handful of us have been alive at a time when we can actually -- not rhetorically -- actually shape the course of history." And I think that's true. And I think he inspired me a little bit more to believe in my generation. And he also reminded everyone to go buy flowers for their mom if they hadn't already. =)
Aside from that, the student speaker gave a great address, and the "chaplain" made me SO GLAD I WENT TO A CHRISTIAN COLLEGE. Oh my goodness, the "Invocation" was a JOKE. If I can find it online somewhere, I'll post it. But, trust me, it was just ridiculous. He was going on and on about the energy around us and in all of us, and how we can grasp onto it and do anything we want to do, and how great we all are, and how we can make ourselves into even greater beings, and so on and so forth.... AND THEN HE SAID "AMEN" AT THE END. That offended me. If he had at even one point in there mentioned "God" (not even Jesus, just God), I could perhaps understand adding an "Amen" to the end. BUT HE DIDN'T. NOWHERE. It was truly absurd, and made me so grateful that I went to Wheaton where we could actually offer up a prayer of thanks and gratefulness for the provision and blessings we'd been given to get where we were, and that the "Amen" was actually part of a thought and prayer given to someone bigger and greater than ourselves. Just some thoughts.
Aside from that, the main point of this is to say I got to be in the same room as Joe Biden. And as my kids would've said, that's just decent.
P.S. Teach For America was mentioned three times as one of those great actually-change-things organizations. Apparently it's absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it the new coolest thing to do. Sweet.
1 comment:
How do you like your new camera? I take mine out for special occasions like snow and Christmas lights reflected on the frig, but I need to use it a lot more.
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