Words of wisdom for the graduating class of 2006

What is your message to this year’s graduates?

How will you give love? Your answer to this question will be a big help in making the next important decisions about what job to take, what further education to pursue, what volunteer work or community and political activities to invest in, how much money you need to make, what lifestyle to create, and what relationships to commit to. It is a question that focuses upon the big picture.

A graduation is a milestone, an important rite of passage that brings with it new opportunities and responsibilities. To graduate from any school means that the student has been successful and deserves the parties that friends and families are proudly throwing in his or her honor. The new grad has been successful in selecting a school, choosing a course of study, sticking with it, weathering setbacks, meeting all the requirements and bringing the ship in.

The question I am asking is, what will the next measure of success be? I hope it will include a commitment to giving at least some time, skills and resources to those who are less fortunate. In our culture, not enough is said about the importance of giving rather than getting or about the deep satisfaction found in caring about the welfare of others and the common good.

The college students I teach tend to be worried about how to make a living, how to provide for a family, make a home, pay off college loans and build financial security.

But I also hear men and women in middle age wanting their children to see them as people who have made a difference in the world, who have contributed and done some good beyond providing for the family. They begin to consider career changes, volunteer work and other activities to engage in this dimension of life.

Bill Gates seems to be a rather spectacular example. He had planned to begin his philanthropic work when he retired, but he realized he could not postpone his involvement. Just today, I read yet another article about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, this time providing millions to finance volunteer lawyers to free victims of sex trafficking and slavery. The person who started this project, the lawyers who volunteer and all those involved are making the choice to give love, rather than opting for la vida loca.

Albert Schweitzer said it best: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

The world has had its fill of religion. Yet, modernity failed to prove that science is the answer to all of our questions. We were taught in school that knowledge is the key to success, but that has not been the experience of most people. Knowledge may get you a good job, but that only gets you more money. Neither money, knowledge, nor religion can bring satisfaction.

In the deepest part of our hearts, we know that we all want to be significant. Society has bought into the lie that significance is measured by degrees on the wall, dollars in the bank, DeLorean cars in your garage or Ds in your bra size. In the end, we all have to answer the question if those things truly are satisfactory.

Faith is big enough to fill the satisfaction gap. Faith is more powerful than mere religion and has answers more meaningful than pure science. It gives you a significance that is eternal and motivates the way you live your life.

A well-known atheist in the United Kingdom recently found himself embarrassed by the actions of his fellow atheists. They were not the ones sacrificing their vacations to help with relief work after Hurricane Katrina, it was the Christians. He even wrote a column in a British paper about his realization that faith, though in his belief misguided, does impact the moral actions of people in a more positive way than does atheism.

As you move out into a world that you will increasingly be responsible for and have an influence on, ask this question: What are you founding your life on? It will make all the difference in the world. The rest of us need you to jump into the game and participate in the process.

Welcome aboard. We have a fun adventure and a lot of work ahead.

RIC OLSEN

Senior Associate Pastor

Harbor Trinity Church

Costa Mesa

Don’t forget to feel the passing of one phase into the next (sometimes a little grieving is necessary).

Don’t forget to say thank you to all those family and friends who stood by you.

Don’t forget to forgive yourself for any mistakes you might have made; it’s never about success and failure; it’s all research and development.

Don’t forget to live your life to the fullest, and don’t be afraid of the unknown ? that’s the place we must all pass through in order to grow.

And finally, don’t forget to thank God for all your blessings, even the difficult times you had to go through to get to this moment. As a friend of mine always reminds me, “It’s all a gift.”

SENIOR PASTOR JAMES TURRELL

Center for Spiritual Discovery

Costa Mesa

Several years ago, I summarized and concluded a graduation speech for eighth-graders quoting the chorus of Ricky Nelson’s “Garden Party:” “It’s all right now, I learned my lesson well. You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.”

Afterward, the head of the school thanked me but noted, “You realize that you and I are the only two people here who know who Ricky Nelson is!”

This year, in the hope that graduates would know who Dr. Seuss is, I’d quote Theodore Seuss Geisel: “Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

(THE VERY REV’D CANON) PETER D. HAYNES

Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

It is said the university is a “vast athletic association where some studies are maintained for the feeble-bodied.” One hopes high school graduates will find otherwise and that college graduates will have enjoyed a different experience.

For those entering or departing, the goal of higher education is not the pursuit of information, but inspiration; it is not merely preparation for a trade, profession or occupation, but a preface for life. The aim of study is the quest for wisdom. For if a student does not emerge from the college years having attained an encompassing compassion, genuine kindness and more fulsome generosity; if he has not achieved a humility that values questions over answers; if he has not arrived at a refined level of responsibility and obligation to others, then the time, effort and money have been squandered.

Israeli Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau was feted when he retired from the bench. Every extravagant encomium was lavished upon him. His legal erudition, scholarship and opinions were extolled.

When Landau rose to speak, he acknowledged the rapturous tributes, but said, “My father taught me there is only one true accomplishment. When I left for university, he admonished me, ‘First and foremost, be a mensch.’ ”

“Mensch” is a Yiddish word connoting a person of good character. It has nothing to do with high scores on SAT exams, a 4.0 grade-point average, admission into prestigious academies of learning, election to honor societies, amassing a profitable stock portfolio or living in a gated community. It is not so much about aptitude as attitude.

A mensch is not revealed in his financial worth but in his worthiness. A mensch is a person who is grateful for his blessings, who knows the difference between right and wrong and does right even when not observed, who thinks more in terms of being than having, who is more concerned with why he lives than with how to make a living. A mensch is tenacious for principle, civil under pressure, modest in victory and gracious in disappointment.

I would tell the graduates that an educated person has gone beyond mere schooling. There are more difficult subjects than calculus and physics, and they are honesty, courage, reverence, morality, decency and piety.

Yes, it is harder to make the heart wider than to make the brain smarter.

A student once boasted to his Rabbi: “I have gone through the entire Talmud twice!” The Rabbi replied: “That is well and good. But how much of the Talmud has gone through you?”

It’s one thing to read books, take tests and write papers. It is quite another to be ennobled through one’s studies.

So, dear student, you are now a graduate. But it takes a lifetime to be a mensch.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

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