Every year for the past nine years....since May of 2015 to be exact....I posted the following....Special Dog's Commencement Speech....at commencement time. It is now May 3.....and once again no college or university....or police academy or culinary school....or anyone....has asked me to give their commencement address! Pitt's commencement is already over.....and the local college where I did graduate work....their commencement is tomorrow....although I can be ready with a half hour notice in an emergency. That really leaves only two schools left.....Morehouse College which has President Biden on the schedule....(see below)....and our grandson's kindergarten class. We attended Grandparents Day a few weeks ago....and I left some hints....but so far nothing. It looks like another year with no invitation....so below is the commencement address that I would have given if invited anywhere....
Special Dog's Commencement Address
Once again another year has passed and I wasn't invited by any college or university 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 Harvard University 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 a 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 by Harvard to give their commencement speech. Maybe next year! Here is that speech....
Today you are graduating from the sixteenth grade. Congratulations! This is that special day when everyone gets to write something obscene or against America on the top of their mortarboard. Most everyone here is 22 years old......which means that you only have four years of living in your parents basement before you must figure out what corporation you are going to be a slave to for the rest of your life. Retirement will probably be about 77 years old when you get there. That's only a tad over a half century away.....about 1/120th of the history of the world since Adam was created. It'll go fast. I don't see anyone laughing out there. Hmm.....maybe I better get serious. There are no....'safe spaces'....in basic training!
A little bit of trivia.....President John Kennedy would be 106 years old today....if he were still alive....but his 46 year old face in the last year of his presidency is what we remember. I had the privilege of seeing him in person as Senator Kennedy and then presidential candidate Kennedy passed by our Catholic grade school....as they herded us all out to wave to him.
I recently viewed an old interview with then Governor Ronald Reagan that was taped on June 5th of 1971. The interviewer asked Governor Reagan if he was going to run for president in 1972. Reagan replied...."No....Lord willing I'll complete my second term as governor." That would make two United States presidents....in a row....Carter and Reagan.....who could naturally use the phrase...."Lord willing." Abraham Lincoln spoke a very similar phrase in his second inaugural address. No surprise there. (Today we tell God what we are going to do...."We're going to keep on winning....winning....winning!")
Your parents would remember this....well maybe your grandparents....that magazine sized book....Four Days, The Historical Record Of The Death of President Kennedy. I think that just about everyone had it back in the months and years following that tragic day in November of 1963. In that book the editors reveal what were...."President Kennedy's last official words-the conclusion of the speech he was to have delivered in Dallas." John Kennedy was to give this speech but never did... for assassins (plural) ended his life.....SPOILER....it wasn't Oswald.
That speech never given by our 35th President concluded with these words....the last official words of President Kennedy...."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 the full verse is:
"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."
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was nominally religious as was I. He would have respected the Bible and believed those words but he could not have truly understood their significance, nor timeliness, nor even seen his own part in attempting to build a city (a country) without the LORD. The 60s were an absolute disaster, the effects of which nearly brought my own life to an end. They produced college professors for the next few decades who gave us many of our problems today. They gave us Barack Obama and the Clintons....two Bush presidents....(Donald Trump....and now Biden)
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....one of them was John Harvard....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. Young people...find your own White Horse Inn! (hint...try....whitehorseinn.org)
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 that 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.
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 political election will give but one night of elation but the coronation of the King of Kings provides 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 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 if it be His will it will happen and if it not be His will 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. I certainly didn't plan it this way but my later adult life....whether while working or in personal relationships....has been one of taking joy in training or teaching when I was able. The greatest joy of a father is in conversations with....in my case....a son....passing on what I have learned....taking advantage of so much experience and so many mistakes....and most of all pointing him to the most blessed and beautiful majesty and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ!
"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."
Note: After rereading this old post....I wanted to mention that I'm serious about this one comment...."Young people...find your own White Horse Inn! (hint...try....whitehorseinn.org)" If you are in college....search out friends who might want to take a page from the past....and show some individuality.....and take some risk....and come together and plead that God might move as He had in the past....on college campuses. Ask Him to bless the intellect that He has given you. The men at The White Horse Inn....might be just the place to go.
