LAST SERMON by Sandy Mack

Give yourself a break. Get off your back. You aren't
perfect. The world isn't perfect. Work to find some way
you can maybe make one little bit of it better. But the
best things you do will probably not be the things you
planned on, but rather that moment when you sit down with
someone depressed and help keep them from suicide. When you
help a child in pain. When you give your parents permission
to die when they are worn out. When you break up with a
girl/boy only to have both of you discover much better
relationships with others. When you bring your hope and joy
to others. All the rest of the time you are being a
responsible adult, maybe making small differences in that
lab, with those computers, on that newsletter or grant
proposal, with that patient, client, or student. In life
after college you can go 360x360x360-1 different directions
(that's every point in a sphere minus the way you have just
come--you can't go back). And any of them could turn out to
be the best one for you. Humanity is a scarey and noble
experiment in freedom. The range of our free choice is most
of what distinguishes us from the other animals. Free
choice means some choices that will turn out, with
hindsight, to have been mistakes. Tough. But minimize the
mistakes that come from cruelty, learn to deal with the
mistakes that come from mistaking, and move on to what are
the best remaining options. Nobody can ask for more. Most
of those who do ask for more would like to control you and
we saw at Jonestown what happens when people control other
people. We may be seeing someing related in Iraq. Of all
you Honors students (and I'm going to miss each of you I
know) maybe 1? maybe 2? will make a single discovery,
invention, creation so important it will change the world.
All of the rest of us will do whatever good we do in the
world by showing up, prepared, home-work done, open to
listen to others, ready to adjust to the unexpected. And we
will make this good difference day by day, month by month,
year by year, decade by decade. So get off your back.
Relax. Life is too painful, beautiful, passionate,
delightful, confusing, and unpredictable for anyone to
expect anyone to be perfect. Just listen to lots of kinds
of music. Dance lots of kinds of dances. Try to meet the
whole world rather than shrink it down to fit into your,
like my, small mind. Grow, grow, grow until, with Whitman,
you contain multitudes. Then you will be ready. For more
growth, more multitudes, more confusion, pain, delight,
joy. Hang in there, Honors gang. It's the only place to
hang. Drive carefully, you hear?!? Bye.