To our graduates.
This week, we deviate from routine for a message to our community’s graduates. And please join us for this week’s guided practice, courtesy of beloved fourth-grade teacher Libby Crews Wood. It’s particularly well suited to graduation week.
Dear Class of 2020,
Congratulations. You are at your future’s doorstep during a time when no one has any idea what’s over the threshold. I’m sorry about that. I really am.
If I were delivering a commencement speech to you, I wouldn’t have a ton of advice because my generation and the generations before mine are the ones who brought us here. And “here” doesn’t feel very great.
Because I am the mom of one of your classmates, I can really picture you in the ceremony I always imagined, caps and gowns askew, smiles and excitement or perhaps looks of boredom, discomfort, or relief on your faces. I’ve seen you shine in your classes and on fields and courts. I’ve seen you shake off social media residue and find resilience with grit I can’t fathom. I’ve seen what you’ve done when your hearts are wide open and you play for joy. I’ve been allowed to eavesdrop on your conversations as you held each other to account, showed up to say good-bye or I’m sorry. Sometimes you just showed up. You’re not perfect, and certainly your parents (me) aren’t, either. But, mostly, I walk away from interactions with you, listen to stories about you, see you hard-working and open-hearted and think, “What beauty this is, what humanity.” You make me hopeful.
Frankly, you’re doing really well in all the chaos. It’s we who need to do better. We are mostly good people. We really love you and care about this world, but we screwed up by feeding the wrong wolves, the ones ravenous for more, more, more. We fed them more of our planet, more of our peace of mind, and more of our attention. Some of us, including me at times, fed them at the expense of people who have gotten less, less, less.
So, please keep doing you. Don’t emulate this picking sides thing. When it comes to caring or working to understand, there is no limit to the pie. I’ve seen you show up for each other, call out mistakes and bullies, stick up for quiet ones. Keep doing that. And be honest when you haven’t done enough, because there are many among you who really hated high school. Some kids really felt alone all through high school, and all of you felt it at different times. So make it your life’s purpose to ease loneliness, your own and others. I’ve seen you lift each other up when you reach out with a text or a hug. Do that 100 times more often. You’re on the right track.
I am going to tell you something you already must suspect: the grownups have no idea what we/they are doing right now. Policies are broken. We’ve ignored each others’ pain for so long that we have just perfected the art of battle. We forgot that we can’t be whole with so much out of balance, that it is impossible to be whole by turning a blind eye to others’ pain. We need to remember how to listen.
Do you ever notice that “success” doesn’t look very successful anymore? You’re going to start to doubt that, but listen deeper instead. While society has worshipped at the altars of status or wealth or power, we failed to notice how impoverished our hearts and souls became. We got smaller, more disconnected by plans to achieve, use technology, build reputation. And it made us a little blind and plenty cut off to the very things that really make us feel successful. Class of 2020, the Quarantine Class, you managed better connections in the face of a pandemic than we’ve managed in a generation. Keep doing what you’re doing.
We are turning you loose in a world that doesn’t make sense, which calls to mind lines from poet Wendell Berry, who actually gives really great advice: “…every day do something that won’t compute..” In other words, do the opposite of what power-brokers and celebrities and so-called “experts” tell you to do. Your work is to clear a trail that you, and you alone, will walk. Because there is another part to what is true for each of us, and that is the fact that you are really the only expert you can ever have. Cultivate the inner compass, and then look there for direction. That expert, who will heave a sigh of satisfaction or leave the world with regret in her final breath, is you.
So, my well wishes do in fact contain some advice. Focus on the inner work – reflection on what gives your soul comfort and meaning – and not just the outer work. Spend your life asking over and over the questions that will help you get self-literate. Does spending my time here make me better, more generous? Is this feeling envy or pettiness, and what do I want with it? Am I in the company of people who enlarge my heart or enslave me to small masters? What can I do to better understand something that makes me really uncomfortable? How can I help? It will be a life-long love affair, this relationship with self-awareness, and it will pay the greatest of dividends.
The happiest and most at-rest people always have enough. Enough care to understand the people around them. Enough persistence to do their part to make change and then revisit their contentment. Enough laughter to spread much faster than any virus.
You might think this kind of person is lucky or nice or just naturally emotionally intelligent. Often, you’d be wrong. This kind of person is the richest of all, the one who has set, at the center of his life, care for neighbors and a patient curiosity over a damning judgement. Keep emulating this kind of person. Your load will be lighter, and you will be part of healing a world that needs healed.
When I close my eyes and picture you in the high school gym, I see your faces and I know you’re up to this task.
Thanks for giving your parents and your community hope. You view the world through a lens in your heart, and new things are revealed from that perspective.
Finally, from Berry, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”
Mind what matters and go well, Class of 2020.
This week’s 8-minute guided meditation: flowing waters
During this week of graduation celebrations taking place against the backdrop of such significant national conversations, local fourth-grade teacher Libby Crews Wood offers a beautiful meditation inspired by a pair of beavers swimming upstream.