OK....that's it....I've had it! Two minutes ago my wife got a text and apparently a friend of hers gave a high school commencement speech yesterday and sent her a video of it! I've waited for an invitation from anywhere for ten years now but I can't even get a grade school commencement to speak at! What's with this? I even have the speech written and can't get an invite! I guess that you have to have some kind of accomplishments in life to be a commencement speaker. (Folks...I've had fun with this commencement speech post every Spring for quite a few years.....but the intent and the message is serious. Consider passing it on to your graduate if the commencement speech that they heard did not even mention the Benefactor of all gifts....including the gift of learning)
Special Dog's Commencement Speech
Once again another year has passed and I wasn't invited by anyone to be their commencement speaker! So I dreamed a dream and in that dream a very fantastical thing happened. Joe Biden was to be the commencement speaker at the University of Pennsylvania but a couple of his hair plugs fell out at the last minute and he refused to go on stage. The Ivy League school administrators were frantic in trying to find a replacement. When they heard my name....Special Dog....they thought I must be a rap singer and thus eminently qualified to give a commencement speech.......then I woke up. So I sat down and penned the speech that I would have given had I in fact been invited as a commencement speaker...anywhere! Here is that speech:
It was drizzling and a bit chilly as my wife and son and I walked Cambridge University back in the spring of 2001. I wanted to see where many of the Puritans were educated, and I wanted to see some of the places where scenes from the Academy Award winning Chariots Of Fire were filmed. The building that housed the White Horse Inn on the grounds of Cambridge was long gone but a small blue plaque hung in the nearest spot possible to that location. That inn was a 16th century English pub where students, Dons and travelers discussed the works of Martin Luther, and out of this discussion came a passion for the hearing of the Word of God which resulted in the English Reformation. My advice to you young people...find your own White Horse Inn!
Let me begin with a little bit of American history....the "last official words" of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The magazine sized book published in 1964 that most everyone has seen... Four Days, The Historical Record Of The Death of President Kennedy, described it this way, "These were President Kennedy's last official words-the conclusion of the speech he was to have delivered in Dallas." That speech ended with these words, "...the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain'." That Bible excerpt is the last half of the 1st verse of Psalm 127....from the King James Version....which begins with this...."Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."
So I pass these words on to you as encouragement in this commencement speech for they are the only truly reliable words that I will utter: Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!
At 68 years old....looking back on 1968 as I graduated from High School....I thought that I had it bad. It was a horrible year with assassinations and riots and heinous murders that were the headlines of our newspaper. It would be another two years before my plane would touch down at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Vietnam. My job dealt with Morse Code intercept of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong communications and then analysis of that intercept. On the first day in that job the man who would be training me showed me files from 1968 after the Tet Offensive. There was basically nothing left of the enemy in South Vietnam except a few people in every unit to keep up the continuity of communications.
The communists had been defeated. Their top general contemplated suicide after the failed offensive that risked and then lost everything. There was a high level meeting somewhere in the Can Tho region of South Vietnam where it looked like the decision would be made to sue for peace.....in other words surrender. Someone in this group stood up and said that they should wait.....that the anti-war protests on the college campuses in America was such that suing for peace might be a hasty decision. They decided to wait it out....and you and I know the final result. As for me at the time....back in Pittsburgh....I was totally immersed in the campaign of my hero Robert F. Kennedy. His death rocked me. I wandered aimlessly for over a year before enlisting in the army.
So you see that through those protests.....the young generation was important.....it was instrumental in the communist takeover of South Vietnam and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese trying to escape the communists.
So.... you will be going out trying to find a job...maybe you already have one lined up.....please remember....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
You finally have that degree....it will be worthless in that which is really valuable if you forget.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Whatever your degree is in.....your future must be built upon this....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
You might already have a position secured at the biggest law firm in New York City.....God's Word reminds you.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!
You're already an expert at investing and have great plans for your portfolio.....is this the title of that portfolio...Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it?
'Make America Great Again' has been an often-used phrase over many decades...do not confuse this with....Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Lastly....you may be a small cog in a megachurch or a valuable member of a small church...either way keep in mind.....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Permit me to digress for a moment....surely somewhere in America on that bleak or snowy Saturday in early December 1941 a young man sat looking out of a restaurant window, or maybe a coffee shop, with a young lady at his side who was his new bride. They had the world at their fingertips as he was just awarded that treasured college diploma he worked so long and hard for, and she wore the wedding band she had dreamed about since they first met in grade school. They looked into each other's eyes with hardly a care in the world. Oh, the plans they had so much fun making.....a small cottage with a white picket fence that someday would keep little ones and maybe a puppy dog from straying as they play.
And then the morning came and as they walked into church the somber faces took their joy away for they had not heard the news from that group of islands where the sun shown year round and warm surf slapped the white beaches. America was in the war against evil....the possibility of which they had only given themselves minutes a day to reflect upon. The young bride knew immediately that their dreams would now be put on hold if they would ever come true. Surely the prayers of all present in that worship service were salted with tears.
Not every generation has its hopes interrupted as this generation did on December 7th, 1941 but your generation today may indeed be another one. Love is disappearing in the world....no.... worse than that....it has been hijacked by greed....tortured by pride....and what is left is directed to ourselves....and we in America are paying dearly for our dalliances. You should know this....if we have a major war today.....a war with at least two fronts.....which is very possible.....you may very well be getting a letter from the government beginning with...."Greeting..."
It was in the 1960s when Madison Avenue realized that the youth of America were a potentially potent economic force with their newly established buying power. Along with all the attention given to us, for I was a Baby Boomer also, came a microphone. Some used it to shout pro-Ho Chi Minh slogans from atop university statues, some used it to attack Richard Nixon, some used it to announce to the world the true meaning of love, peace and happiness, and a very few used it to ask "Brother, are you saved?"
Much later when Barack Hussein Obama came along with no employment history to speak of, no legitimate letters of recommendation, no experience outside of community organizing and not even a birth certificate to prove eligibility for the job he was applying for, the youth came out in force America. Barack Obama received 66 percent of the 18-29 vote in 2008.
America needs a vigorous but positive contribution from its youth at this very moment in our history. It must not be birthed by the spirit of the age but by God's Holy Spirit. Just getting a job cannot be the criteria to determine success. The college student of today is in a more precarious situation than any generation before them. Not the Civil War, nor World War II, nor the Cuban Missile Crisis compares to it. They are losing their republican form of government, the Constitution that kept the rule of law intact, and most importantly the blessings of having God's very hand upon our nation.
The original discovery that youth were an economic force has evolved into a monster feeding frenzy with the youth feeding on every material and social networking product thrown at them while others feed on the youth themselves, and enemies of America feed on the vacant minds seeking anything to....occupy.
I realize that you do not want to hear this. Possibly you are not represented by this description. You have made plans, worked hard and now it is your turn to enter the work force and carve out a niche with a prosperous future. Are you going to attempt this without God, or at least expect the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a nation that overtly rejects God? Realize this.... past generations had the benefit of living within of a God-fearing populace. Even the agnostic could graze in the fields of plenty. This is not the case today! Others have long since sprayed the insecticide of secular humanism over the amber waves of grain, killing the grain it was supposed to protect. You can join this survival of the fittest if you want, where prosperity is soulless and void of true happiness; or you can join those who are seeking mercy from God and a renewed reverence to the one who blessed your grandparents and their parents as far back as to the arrival of the Pilgrims on this continent.
Do you sometimes feel a void of passion in your life...a meaninglessness that cannot be satisfied by the picture that you paint on your Facebook page? Well, a river of passion flows right by you! Cup your hands and drink from it. Let mercy and peace pass over your palate. A President's election will give but one night of elation but the coronation of the King of Kings will provide every morning and every evening with a ceaseless ardor that will make you forever thankful. If you happen to really see the trouble that we are in here in America....that very vision is from God....and He will also give the balm....supply the strength....and provide the wisdom to see the joy of redemption even in the darkest hours of this world....and to plan ahead with the full trust that whatever is ahead for America....if it be His will then it is for good....and if it not be His will....even if it would make America 'great again'....you would not want it to happen. Here is the only true hope and change...... "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." 2 Corinthians 5:17
One does not have to be a PHD, or a celebrity, a statesman, general or financial wizard to relay God's wisdom to graduates.....Wisdom herself shouts out to us...."Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
Special Dog's Commencement Speech
Once again another year has passed and I wasn't invited by anyone to be their commencement speaker! So I dreamed a dream and in that dream a very fantastical thing happened. Joe Biden was to be the commencement speaker at the University of Pennsylvania but a couple of his hair plugs fell out at the last minute and he refused to go on stage. The Ivy League school administrators were frantic in trying to find a replacement. When they heard my name....Special Dog....they thought I must be a rap singer and thus eminently qualified to give a commencement speech.......then I woke up. So I sat down and penned the speech that I would have given had I in fact been invited as a commencement speaker...anywhere! Here is that speech:
It was drizzling and a bit chilly as my wife and son and I walked Cambridge University back in the spring of 2001. I wanted to see where many of the Puritans were educated, and I wanted to see some of the places where scenes from the Academy Award winning Chariots Of Fire were filmed. The building that housed the White Horse Inn on the grounds of Cambridge was long gone but a small blue plaque hung in the nearest spot possible to that location. That inn was a 16th century English pub where students, Dons and travelers discussed the works of Martin Luther, and out of this discussion came a passion for the hearing of the Word of God which resulted in the English Reformation. My advice to you young people...find your own White Horse Inn!
Let me begin with a little bit of American history....the "last official words" of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The magazine sized book published in 1964 that most everyone has seen... Four Days, The Historical Record Of The Death of President Kennedy, described it this way, "These were President Kennedy's last official words-the conclusion of the speech he was to have delivered in Dallas." That speech ended with these words, "...the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain'." That Bible excerpt is the last half of the 1st verse of Psalm 127....from the King James Version....which begins with this...."Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."
So I pass these words on to you as encouragement in this commencement speech for they are the only truly reliable words that I will utter: Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!
At 68 years old....looking back on 1968 as I graduated from High School....I thought that I had it bad. It was a horrible year with assassinations and riots and heinous murders that were the headlines of our newspaper. It would be another two years before my plane would touch down at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Vietnam. My job dealt with Morse Code intercept of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong communications and then analysis of that intercept. On the first day in that job the man who would be training me showed me files from 1968 after the Tet Offensive. There was basically nothing left of the enemy in South Vietnam except a few people in every unit to keep up the continuity of communications.
The communists had been defeated. Their top general contemplated suicide after the failed offensive that risked and then lost everything. There was a high level meeting somewhere in the Can Tho region of South Vietnam where it looked like the decision would be made to sue for peace.....in other words surrender. Someone in this group stood up and said that they should wait.....that the anti-war protests on the college campuses in America was such that suing for peace might be a hasty decision. They decided to wait it out....and you and I know the final result. As for me at the time....back in Pittsburgh....I was totally immersed in the campaign of my hero Robert F. Kennedy. His death rocked me. I wandered aimlessly for over a year before enlisting in the army.
So you see that through those protests.....the young generation was important.....it was instrumental in the communist takeover of South Vietnam and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese trying to escape the communists.
So.... you will be going out trying to find a job...maybe you already have one lined up.....please remember....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
You finally have that degree....it will be worthless in that which is really valuable if you forget.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Whatever your degree is in.....your future must be built upon this....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
You might already have a position secured at the biggest law firm in New York City.....God's Word reminds you.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!
You're already an expert at investing and have great plans for your portfolio.....is this the title of that portfolio...Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it?
'Make America Great Again' has been an often-used phrase over many decades...do not confuse this with....Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Lastly....you may be a small cog in a megachurch or a valuable member of a small church...either way keep in mind.....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Permit me to digress for a moment....surely somewhere in America on that bleak or snowy Saturday in early December 1941 a young man sat looking out of a restaurant window, or maybe a coffee shop, with a young lady at his side who was his new bride. They had the world at their fingertips as he was just awarded that treasured college diploma he worked so long and hard for, and she wore the wedding band she had dreamed about since they first met in grade school. They looked into each other's eyes with hardly a care in the world. Oh, the plans they had so much fun making.....a small cottage with a white picket fence that someday would keep little ones and maybe a puppy dog from straying as they play.
And then the morning came and as they walked into church the somber faces took their joy away for they had not heard the news from that group of islands where the sun shown year round and warm surf slapped the white beaches. America was in the war against evil....the possibility of which they had only given themselves minutes a day to reflect upon. The young bride knew immediately that their dreams would now be put on hold if they would ever come true. Surely the prayers of all present in that worship service were salted with tears.
Not every generation has its hopes interrupted as this generation did on December 7th, 1941 but your generation today may indeed be another one. Love is disappearing in the world....no.... worse than that....it has been hijacked by greed....tortured by pride....and what is left is directed to ourselves....and we in America are paying dearly for our dalliances. You should know this....if we have a major war today.....a war with at least two fronts.....which is very possible.....you may very well be getting a letter from the government beginning with...."Greeting..."
It was in the 1960s when Madison Avenue realized that the youth of America were a potentially potent economic force with their newly established buying power. Along with all the attention given to us, for I was a Baby Boomer also, came a microphone. Some used it to shout pro-Ho Chi Minh slogans from atop university statues, some used it to attack Richard Nixon, some used it to announce to the world the true meaning of love, peace and happiness, and a very few used it to ask "Brother, are you saved?"
Much later when Barack Hussein Obama came along with no employment history to speak of, no legitimate letters of recommendation, no experience outside of community organizing and not even a birth certificate to prove eligibility for the job he was applying for, the youth came out in force America. Barack Obama received 66 percent of the 18-29 vote in 2008.
America needs a vigorous but positive contribution from its youth at this very moment in our history. It must not be birthed by the spirit of the age but by God's Holy Spirit. Just getting a job cannot be the criteria to determine success. The college student of today is in a more precarious situation than any generation before them. Not the Civil War, nor World War II, nor the Cuban Missile Crisis compares to it. They are losing their republican form of government, the Constitution that kept the rule of law intact, and most importantly the blessings of having God's very hand upon our nation.
The original discovery that youth were an economic force has evolved into a monster feeding frenzy with the youth feeding on every material and social networking product thrown at them while others feed on the youth themselves, and enemies of America feed on the vacant minds seeking anything to....occupy.
I realize that you do not want to hear this. Possibly you are not represented by this description. You have made plans, worked hard and now it is your turn to enter the work force and carve out a niche with a prosperous future. Are you going to attempt this without God, or at least expect the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a nation that overtly rejects God? Realize this.... past generations had the benefit of living within of a God-fearing populace. Even the agnostic could graze in the fields of plenty. This is not the case today! Others have long since sprayed the insecticide of secular humanism over the amber waves of grain, killing the grain it was supposed to protect. You can join this survival of the fittest if you want, where prosperity is soulless and void of true happiness; or you can join those who are seeking mercy from God and a renewed reverence to the one who blessed your grandparents and their parents as far back as to the arrival of the Pilgrims on this continent.
Do you sometimes feel a void of passion in your life...a meaninglessness that cannot be satisfied by the picture that you paint on your Facebook page? Well, a river of passion flows right by you! Cup your hands and drink from it. Let mercy and peace pass over your palate. A President's election will give but one night of elation but the coronation of the King of Kings will provide every morning and every evening with a ceaseless ardor that will make you forever thankful. If you happen to really see the trouble that we are in here in America....that very vision is from God....and He will also give the balm....supply the strength....and provide the wisdom to see the joy of redemption even in the darkest hours of this world....and to plan ahead with the full trust that whatever is ahead for America....if it be His will then it is for good....and if it not be His will....even if it would make America 'great again'....you would not want it to happen. Here is the only true hope and change...... "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." 2 Corinthians 5:17
One does not have to be a PHD, or a celebrity, a statesman, general or financial wizard to relay God's wisdom to graduates.....Wisdom herself shouts out to us...."Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
