I was asked to speak at our high school's convocation ceremony. A commencement address type talk. It was a HUGE honour. I love teaching. To be asked to speak to the graduating class, by the students organizing the event, meant a lot to me. Here is the talk I gave. Oh, by the way, I brought a Gandalf staff with me, (because, I used the same quote as the post before this one) and a lightsaber. There was pretend magic and confetti cannons. It was a blast. If I ever get pictures I will put them up on Instagram or something. It might make more sense. It was fun and an absolute honour.
Anyway, here is talk;
Well,
20 years ago, I had my graduation. I’m going to start off with a short
story. I was an MC for our banquet and I
thought it would be hilarious to fake faint.
So I talked to a few buddies so that they would for sure laugh so that
everyone would know it was a joke. I
started talking, and then proceeded to pretend to get light headed and fall on
the stage. One guy laughed, the others
just stayed quiet, so to this day, I don’t know who thought I actually fainted.
Moral
of the story, it’s not the first time I have made a fool of myself speaking at
a grad so if something goes sideways, we’ll just roll with it.
Seriously,
it truly is an honour for me to stand here and take part in this with you. Graduation is really a weird thing man. I remember my high school grad being a bit
anticlimactic because it was built up into this thing and I didn’t know really
what it should look like, and by the time I thought I had figured it out, the
night was over. That’s what I kind of remember.
I was having fun, and I knew I was graduating, but it’s hard to know
what graduating means until you have enough life to develop the hindsight to
realize what it was.
So
what is it really all about? Well here’s
one way someone could put it: You are
leaving the school that is Winston Churchill and entering the school of life. Did you see what I tried to do there? I tried to say that in a low deep voice
tailored for maximum impact, then I paused, looked over the crowd, waited for
it to sink in and then felt good about myself.
Because you should remember that point.
Remember it children, remember.
I
said it, but not because I think it’s a great phrase, I said it because just
wanted to illustrate how cheesy that is. I mean, you’re not just now entering into the
school of life right? What the heck have
the past 18ish years been about? According
to low voice dramatic guy you haven’t yet begun to learn about life. It’s flat
out bonkers to think that you haven’t already been learning lessons at the
school of life. Life has been happening
to you this whole time. Trust me. I’m a bio teacher.
So
what does it really mean? To me, what today signifies, is that, you are about
to start the journey of figuring out what YOU want your life to look like.
YOU.
You
are going to start having control over a lot of your own destiny now. For your parents, today is significant in
that it is a symbol of you leaving them.
It’s an exciting and emotional day for parents, probably even more so
than it is for you, so if they want to hug you or kiss you a few more times
than normal today just deal with it.
Life is a strange thing. I always get my biology classes to think about the fact that their thoughts are really just a smattering of electric and chemical signals passing through different parts of their brain. It’s crazy. Everything you think you are sensing is just a series of non-living processes.
Your
body just works. Your heart is beating
right now and you don’t even think about it.
Till just now that I mentioned it now you’re all thinking about it. What’s insane is that your mind interprets all
these things and can tell you that you are experiencing joy, pain, confusion,
elation. A plethora of feelings and
emotions and thoughts are propagated by things that aren’t actually alive. Isn’t that awesome?
Life
is also strange because at some moments throughout your life, you can’t
possibly believe it could be any better and at other times you can’t conceive
of how it could possibly be worse. All the parents, family, friends and
teachers in the stands today have had these thoughts.
5
years ago this August I had one of the best things happen to me, followed by
the worst thing that has ever happened to me occur within 4 days of each other.
On
August 26th 2009 my wife Krista and I welcomed into the world our
third child, Sophie, and my 6 year old son Jaxon and 4 year old daughter grace
were excited for a new sister and that Grandmas and Grandpas and aunts and
uncles were going to be hanging out to see the new baby. A new baby is a symbol of innocence that can
rarely be matched in this world.
When
Soph was born, it was a joyous occasion. Honestly, if you have kids some day, you can’t
get a happier, more pure moment. I’m
sure your parents can remember when you were born. It’s scary too of course, becoming a parent. I remember bringing Jaxon home when he was
born, and Krista and I kind of looked at each other as we walked into the house
kind of wondering, “What the heck do we do now? When are this kid’s parents
coming to get him…wait…WE’RE his parents”
Parenting
is a fascinating thing. I thought that
my parents knew what they were doing when they were raising me. When I had my own kids I realized that
parents don’t know a lick about what’s going to happen. They do their best. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they have things that dog them in
their lives that you don’t understand.
We are all still working on ourselves.
You will be working on yourself the rest of your life.
Anyway,
we were going through these feelings again when Soph came home. Really happy, and a bit confused, because we
didn’t really know what it would be like to have three kids at home instead of
two and all kinds of other stuff like that. But there was a peace about it, and
we were happy.
A
couple days later my life had changed from one of the happiest moments to the
saddest, most confusing moment I have had yet to face. My wife Krista experienced a pulmonary
embolism the day after we brought Sophie home.
It’s a blood clot that caused problems with breathing and blood flow and
she passed away the next day. I didn’t
know what to do. I know many of you students know this story. That was just about 5 years ago now.
I
don’t tell you this to gain sympathy, or for you to feel sorry for me. The thing about life is that it isn’t all
about good times. There is loss and there are hard times. Each of us goes through hard times. I am not the only one.
I
tell you these things because 5 years ago I could not have ever pictured standing
right here right now talking to a group of great graduates. In those few days after Krista passed away I
never knew how I was going to get to the next day, let alone 5 years into the
future.
(Get Gandalf staff)
Now,
you all probably can tell that any guy brings a replica staff from a fictional
wizard to a talk at graduation is either crazy or has been impacted by
something that character did or said. I’m
sure it’s a lot of both for me.
Anyway,
I’m a big fan of the Lord of the Rings, and the movies, and there are words
spoken by Gandalf (a wise wizard) to Frodo (a Hobbit) that sum up the reality
we have to face when hard times arrive in our lives.
The
context is that Frodo had a magic ring come into his possession, which in the
past had been used to do the worst kinds of evil in his world. It is a symbol of evil. Once the ring came into his possession his
life was never the same, and was much more difficult and frightening than his
life before. The future was unknown. So on the way to get rid of this ring, a
group of characters get lost in a series of caves and in this bleakness, Frodo
talks with Gandalf about his plight.
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come
to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil.
I
get emotional about this because I feel that, that is how I have to live my
life. Krista’s death was not mine to
decide, I have to decide what to do with the time that is given to me. I can’t be stuck wishing that things had never
happened and never move forward. You
will come into struggles in your life, your own “ring”, what are you going to
do with the time that is given to you.
The
second part of that is that “There are other forces at work in this world
Frodo, besides the will of evil”
For
me, a faith in God is the major focal point in my life. It grounds me. I’m not going to preach at you or anything,
if you wanted to talk about faith later I would be happy too. That’s not the point of this. I just feel that we all need some grounding
somewhere, something that represents the “other forces in this world besides
the evil ones”, so that when unsolvable problems come, with questions that we
can’t answer, we can find a place of peace.
Many of us don’t search for that grounding until something horrible
happens. I would encourage your to
define what your source of strength is.
If you can’t, then search for it so that when hard times come, you can cling
to your source.
Now
there is no magic in this staff, but there is magic for me in those words. So let me put this thing away….
Go
to put staff away. ----then pause and say---you know I don’t think there is any
magic in this staff, but how do I KNOW there is no magic? Well a science
perspective would say I need to test it.
So let’s try this once. You need
to help me though. ON the count of
three, and after I say three, let’s all yell out, You Shall Not Pass!
Well
apparently, Grad has bestowed magic on this place…
You
also need to understand that you can’t have a full life living in
isolation.
I
love the idea of love. The word Love can
mean a whole lot of different things to a whole lot of different people in a
whole lot of different situations. One
of my favourite authors N.T. Wright said, “ There’s a problem about this particular
blessed word, “love”. The English word
“love” is trying to do so many different jobs at the same time that someone
really ought to sit down with it and teach it how to delegate.”
Words
like “love” are just things we’ve invented to communicate thoughts and
expectations. When those words don’t
match the actions it can cause hurt.
Nobody wants to be involved in a friendship or a loving relationship
with someone who is constantly failing to live up to their promises. Nobody likes a liar. Your words need to match your actions. Trust is the key in any relationship, whether
it is romantic, or friendship, or family. Trust is the base of love. I think love is the base of life. So I believe it follows that we should live in
a trustworthy manner. Integrity is
important.
My
late wife Krista used to say, “Jared, don’t overpromise and under
deliver.” I hope that you take that into
account when you move forward in your life.
Say what you mean, live up to what you promise people. If you don’t, apologize and learn from that
experience.
Grad
is sometimes an event that is emotional for many because the milestone can
remind us of times we have failed to live up to our words and promises. This happens when we think of our family
relationships or our friendships. Big moments remind us of mistakes that we
wished could be remedied. Things that
have sat undiscussed for a long time, but need to be fixed. I hope that in each of your lives, this day
can serve as a renewal for you to move into your adult life free of
regrets. It’s never too late to say I’m
sorry, or “I love you.”
I
also think you need to follow your dreams, but live up to your
responsibilities.
Let’s
say I had a dream of entering the field of interpretive dance. All it would mean is that I quit my job, and
move my family to New York where I can make it.
Look, that’s stupid. Not because
I wouldn’t be a great interpretive dancer, but the upheaval I would be subjecting
my family too would be counter to my responsibilities as a father. I would
encourage you to evaluate what your decisions are by a combination of your
feelings, wise council and true assessment of your responsibilities.
Don’t
get me wrong. Living responsibly doesn’t
mean that you should never take a risk.
We
all love stories, movies, adventures.
Any character we find fascinating takes risks. They come through things, they fight
through. The characters that are loved,
step up and take risks they need to take but often they do it for the sake of
others.
If
your life is a story, what kind of character would you want to see yourself as?
Time
has the ability to fly by, or crawl. 5
years ago can sometimes seem like yesterday, and other times it seems like a
lifetime ago. I can’t explain that. Think of where you were 5 years ago. That was
the end of grade 7 for you. Do you
remember what you were like going into grade 8?
Do you see yourselves now? Think
about what could happen 5 years from now.
Do you have any concept of that?
I don’t. 5 years is like an
eternity really. So many things can
happen in our lives.
A
wise martial arts master once said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a
mystery, but today is a gift. That is
why they call it the present.” That was Master Uguay from Kung Fu Panda. I hope
you can take the gift of life that has been given to you today. If you are in tough time, even if it’s the
hardest time in your life, remember, you may not know what tomorrow looks like,
but keep going. Honestly, things can get
better.
Also
remember, there is just as much chance of great things happening in your life,
(probably more so) as hard things. When was the last time you had trouble
sleeping because you were worried about how the next day would turn out? I’ve
found that when that has happened to me, usually whatever I was worried about
ended up looking different, or even as close to as bad as I played it up to
be. The reality is that tomorrow is full
of opportunity, we don’t know what good is coming either. We can’t forget that.
So
to sum up:
You
need to identify your source of strength to weather the storms,
You
need to love others more than you love yourself, life is best lived in
community and not in isolation
You
need to follow your dreams, but live up to your responsibilities and your
words.
You
also need to give Jared a million dollars if you ever win the lottery. How else am I going to afford to get into the
interpretive dance game?
Love
you guys and girls from the Churchill Grad Class of 2014. I really do.
Thanks.
