A May 25 Commencement Address To Forest Lake Academy Graduates
by Sandra Doran
It’s almost time for the drum roll. One more set of nice words. One more inspirational pitch. You may be wondering why it is so important to us to get up and offer these lofty visions for you. Those of my generation may remember a song by Cat Stevens:
Oh very young
What will you leave us this time?
You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while…
You see, the reason we are urging you to go out and be your best is that we need you. We need your energy, vision, and passion. We need your commitment. We’re all getting older here. You’re it!
So I challenge you:
I challenge you to write so passionately, deeply, and clearly about the social injustice in my neighborhood that I will no longer be able to sit silent.
I challenge you to listen to a child with such compassion, understanding, and insight that she will feel loved for the first time in her life and begin to heal.
I challenge you to analyze the engine of a car so studiously that when I am stalled and frustrated, you will know it needs a new fuel injector, and I will be able to get back about my business.
I challenge you to fly to Africa and cradle a child with AIDS in your arms so the tears on her mother’s face will dry for just a fraction of a second.
I challenge you to craft the words and melody to a song so beautiful, so eloquent, that I can do nothing but fall down on my knees and weep.
I challenge you to figure and refigure numbers with such sharpness and precision that I can sleep at night knowing my books are in order.
I challenge you to pore over medical books and study every bone, muscle, and fiber of the human body so that when my grandchildren become ill, you will be able to offer a cure.
I challenge you to study the vanishing breeds of birds and butterflies, save the African Green Broadbill, the Alabama Heelsplitter, the Apache Trout, the Apollo Butterfly, and the Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross.
I challenge you to take up your pencil and produce light and shadow, layers and levels of meaning, and create a drawing that stirs my soul and reminds me of my Creator.
I challenge you to become so intimately acquainted with air currents, jet streams, and weather patterns that you will warn me long in advance of an approaching tornado.
I challenge you to repair our computers, our cell phones, our hearts, and our marriages.
I challenge you to care for our pets, our neighborhoods, our bodies, and our souls.
I challenge you to fall so deeply in love with Christ that you cannot help but spread the news to a world in crisis.
I challenge you to pass the bills that will offer dignity to all people groups and write the legislation that will eliminate poverty. I challenge you to represent honesty, goodness, and all that is right within our world.
I challenge you to fly a plane as straight as an arrow and navigate the seas with skill and accuracy.
I challenge you to produce audio as clear as a swiftly running stream and video that shatters old stereotypes and leads to new levels of understanding and empathy.
I challenge you to find a cure for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, and congenital heart disease.
I challenge you to forge a truce with the battle-weary, a path into undiscovered places, and a way where there has been no way.
I challenge you to bind up the wounds of the broken-hearted, preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and release the oppressed.
I challenge you to fight the fires that ravage the nation, write the sermon that converts 1,000, and baptize the teenager who changes the world.
I challenge you to make a difference. I double dare you. I challenge you.