Think on These Things

In the middle of the 18th century a new word in the English language was born. As you know, the British Empire was built on commerce and a navy. As its ships sailed their lanes across the oceans, on land what were once cow paths became commercial roads. Sailors measured distance by the number of knots on a rope tied to a log thrown off the bow and gathered back from the stern. In the same way, to measure distance, landlubbers made marks on the road. They planted stones. Each mile. And thus was born the word “milestone.”

 

By this century the word has deep sixed its literal meaning for its metaphorical one. These commencement days are a milestone. The road, Graduates and Parents, is your life. Its milestones are special places, where you might break your journey, measure how far to go before you sleep, and, turning around, how far you’ve gone.

 

Gentlemen, you’re old enough to use a decade as a marker: 2007, 2017. In 2007 thirty-one of you were readying to enroll here, forty-nine were elsewhere (39 of the 49 came in Forms I and III). Twelve of our current Lower School teachers welcomed you. There was no Marriot Hall or athletic complex, but the greatest change in the last decade at St. Albans has been in you. If you doubt the profound mental and physical changes you’ve live through, look at two photos—the one we took of 31 of you when you entered C form and the other we took of all 80 of you last September flanking an entering C former. Astonishing, this life, this changing.

 

Frankly, those are the simple numbers. There are cultural changes in only ten years. Now you might take your shoes off in security lines, there’s an app for everything and everyone blogs. There’s a camera in your cell—oh yes, cell phones—and Facebook, now passé, has signed up some ungodly number of people minus me. There are iPods, Sexting, Starbucks on every corner, Twitter, Wikipedia, and You Tube. Now we connect by Tech, move around the country less often, and prefer cities to country. Caucasians are steadily becoming the minority. Universities—where you’re headed—are polarized. And the most valued photograph we take is of ourselves.

 

What is much harder to measure is spiritual change. We credit the Greek philosopher Heraclitus with saying “the only constant is change.” While it’s easy to see that change is the constant of our physical, mental, and cultural lives, somehow we want to believe that our spiritual core is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, that something—anything—does not change. In the epistle today Saint Paul, without speaking of change, tells us to devote our lives to whatever is true, honorable, pure, pleasing, commendable, and excellent. To think on these things. And because these same words are often used to describe God, we might deceive ourselves into believing all spiritual wisdom all of our lives will remain the same.

 

Herein lies a mystery, and embedded in that mystery is an emotional ambivalence. We must accept that what we believe is true, honorable, pure, and so forth today might not be the same as ten years ago. But the beliefs might in fact be the same. Or there might simply be common elements between the two. And since we can easily understand the ancients, what I believe now to be commendable might be the same as a first century Christian thought commendable, or a third century BCE Greek or a Persian of the twelfth century. Or it might not.

 

As you journey your road, milestone by milestone, remember if this School has taught you one thing it is to think deeply on these things. This is not easy. What is very hard is to tell yourself the truth. Who are you? How have I changed? What’s honorable? Excellent? What pleases?

 

To me, the spiritual wisdom comes from the effort, from the thinking on these things and because of them from the doing. Stop at the milestone and ask yourself these questions. Find the habit to be asking in-between milestones. Strive to be a good man now, at the time of your tenth reunion in 2027, or at the time of your fiftieth in 2067. And in searching for those things, I’m confident the search will inspire you to give of yourself, and that is the ultimate good. God bless you.