Address to the Graduating Class of Saint Peter’s College 2004

President Father Loughran, Father Novak, Rector of the Jesuit Community, Distinguished Officers and Members of the Faculty, family and guests and most importantly graduates of the class of 2004.When I was a student at Saint Peters College, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was locked in a closet and conversed for a short time with Martin Luther King as a result of a bomb scare in our College auditorium, the Vietnam War was raging and I even got a chance to ride in an open car for about 10 minutes with Bobby Kennedy who was campaigning for office. These were tumultuous times that were no more tumultuous than the present and I survived. You will survive these times as well. I have traveled far since those days at Saint Peters and I have learned much. In the short time that I have to address you today, I wish to give you some advice that is expected of Commencement speakers, which may inspire you, but at the least be memorable. My suggestions this morning are based on personal experience, but the result of the Jesuit way of thinking, that I developed as a result of my Saint Peter’s College education and that which carried me through many ordeals throughout the past four decades and propelled me through life.First of all, Saint Peter’s College is a college of real people. In my day the children of Poles, Germans, Irish and Italian immigrants were welcomed and educated here so that they could go on go on to become learned men and women who could and in some cases have an influence on worldly affairs. Many of them did as scientists, business people, teachers, nurses and other professions too numerous to name. Now you represent another generation, another wave of Middle Americans who are charged to do the same. You are the products of hard working Latino, African Americans, Middle Eastern and Asian families who sit before me and wonder if this is possible, if this change can be affected by “me”. Moreover your parents and family are so very proud today—and they have a right to be proud, for you are the embodiment of the American dream. Saint Peters College more than any other school provides a liberal Jesuit training that cuts through all classes, races, creeds and even regions. In this great tradition of Jesuitical wisdom, you must go out and make your mark. This is your responsibility and it is your time. The Jesuit teaching that one “must find God in all things” is more important today than ever before, for as in the decades past, human despair and the hatred of segments of humanity is as great now as it was in the lowest times of human history.To me a physician whose goal in life is to preserve and save lives in the face of chaos, the aphorism is better said as “finding God in all peoples and in all things”. Taking charge of people’s lives—be they very short or very long—gives one a certain insight into the dynamics of life.I would like to share some of the insights I believe are seminal in life and just maybe “of significant value” in the conduct of yours.The first of these is an overall need for Compassion. If you find God in all things, you will find God in other people and their cultures. I will address cultures in a minute. However, compassion is a strained commodity in a society which prides itself on stoicism, perfection, and the definition of success as having more money than anyone else. Karen Armstrong the distinguished Islamic scholar and ex nun considers Compassion the most important virtue of people. It is the key to all religions from Judaism to Islam. Although human compassion is important it is not a popular virtue to discuss, it emerges at the strangest times. On the morning of September 11, 2001 when the dust began to clear, I was impressed more than ever before in my life with the outpouring of this virtue, Compassion. After those towers fell and death took command and overtook almost every attempt to save lives, people gave of themselves like never before. The focus was a common danger and a common tragedy. Strangers gave their own clothing to the injured and the naked. Strangers gave their belongings and whatever they owned to help the injured. They made makeshift stretchers out of chairs, splints out of office window blinds, and opened their wallets and hearts for perfect strangers. Perhaps they helped in whatever way they could because of the enormity of the event. Perhaps their focus changed. Perhaps there was a basic need for bonds between humans at a very basic level in a time of great catastrophe. I have no idea. As Saint Ignatius once said “Love manifests itself more in deeds than in words”. I have never seen naked regard for others as I did on that morning and the mornings after during the rescue efforts. I have been a doctor for many years and I will never forget that day and the lessons I learned about people, their overall regard for humanness and the good within their souls—good that would evaporate over the next few weeks but good that invigorated my belief in the human spirit—enough good to last my whole life. Philosophically, pure regard for strangers is not a learned trait but a virtue and very human as I learned at Saint Peters. This regard for strangers is supposed to form the core of my profession of medicine, but often not readily found within it.However, If you want something intangible that will give you hours of reward and afford some of the greatest riches that you will ever find in your short life, it is true Compassion for those in need at the worst times of their lives. Oddly it is the backbone of religion. It is a very American trait and it is the spine of volunteerism or the giving of yourself without any guarantee of reward. It is what makes us a great people.A second attribute which is the cornerstone of every success is embracing Courage. I do not say courage to make you believe that you should all become “heroes” and run into burning buildings. It is also my belief that the word hero is an overused word. No, I mean the courage to face challenges squarely in the eye and to learn to deal with failure which will surely come in many ways throughout your life.This is what I mean by courage. I have degrees galore and many achievements, but I have failed miserably at many things, failed many exams in my day, had many papers rejected by editors and been turned down for many positions of employment. Every noble achievement is accompanied by great failure which must never be accepted as the defining moment in one’s life. The quest for perfection or success must never stop at one or two or even twenty failed attempts. The truly successful individual is one who can cope with failure and move on despite it. It is possible that a change of course or a new approach could ensure future success in what ever endeavor you pursue, but you must always learn to accept failure and move on despite it. Perhaps this virtue above all others will ensure success in life. Woodrow Wilson said “high standards must come on graduation. Nothing worthwhile is easy. Muscles are never made without hard work.” I teach this to young physicians, we embrace this virtue in our research so that we can make discovery, and we want both emotional and physical maturity in our clinicians. I revere this quality in people more than anything else in our culture. Never cease to take a new opportunity. The greatest regrets in life are those opportunities never realized because of fear and indecision. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s thoughts “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” was taken by my favorite President Theodore Roosevelt and changed in his essay “A Strenuous Life” to “it is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” He referred to those who “know neither victory nor defeat” as poor souls. Courage will enable you and allow you to do anything you want.Lastly I want to tell you about another virtue called open mindedness or learned acceptance. This open mindedness refers to the acceptance of other cultures and beliefs through education, not just mindless tolerance. I consider tolerance an ignorant acceptance of a culture. I speak now not only of religion, but I include religion as a major player in the life of people. We have learned the hard way that Religion differs among cultures and we need to learn more about certain of these in the world in order to influence other parts of other cultures. I speak also of an open mindedness for technology and science in the modern age and to a certain degree these disciplines are inextricably linked to religion. Acceptance of this need for education and understanding is vital to both the aforementioned virtues of compassion and courage.Not since the crusades of the Middle Ages has your church and the values of our world been as challenged as today. However, the goodness of the human spirit always wins in the end. There are so many palpable differences between the people on the planet and so much distrust and enmity bred by ignorance. On one end of the spectrum we go to Mars or study gene expression to understand disease and at the other extreme there is no clean running water. In order to understand any culture a high quantity of mutual respect is required and this can only be acquired through education. To this end you have made a good start. The differences of people on the planet can be resolved with a passion for social justice and an open mindedness so as not to alienate certain constituencies in our own society as well as those abroad. Examples of this vary from a respect of the fine aspects of Islam, an appreciation of varied sexual behavior as an integral part of the human condition and part of a biological fact of all mammalian species, a sensible respect for life, regard for homeless persons, an appreciation of women, to an understanding of pluripotent stem cell technology. These are very difficult examples and sometimes counter intuitive to our family values, the tenets of our religion or our own philosophy of life. These are scary for all of us; for physicians, priests, politicians, and the average person watching the evening news. But they are a reality and sometime in your learned life you will be asked your opinion about one or another of these in one form or another. Have an open mind, learn to endure change and as a result become leaders. God knows we need them. Open mindedness will provide you with wisdom, inner peace, enable compassion and give you the courage to do the right thing. As an aside on my office door at the hospital I have an aphorism from Mark Twain “Always do the right thing, this will gratify some and amaze the rest”.Saint Peter’s College enabled me to embrace these virtues as a youngster and many thousands of people have benefited from my approach to the dilemmas of incurable disease at the bedside and in the laboratory, showing as much compassion as possible for every race of people, forcing myself in fear to go toward catastrophe instead of away from it, and teaching countless medical students and young physicians about illness and the fundamental nature of people, transparent of race or ethnicity. I have struggled to keep an open mind about all things.William Allen White, the editor of the Emporium Gazette, a liberal republican individual gave a commencement address at Northwestern University in 1936 before World War II. The young graduates he addressed would soon be fighting the axis powers and compassion and courage would soon be measured on the battlefields of Europe. His famous quote I wish to leave you with, because it fits our time and my theme. “You may have for the moment indolent sense of futility that comes with the grand cynicism of youth. But life, experience, the hazards of your day and time will bring out the courage bred into you”.First your family has bred in you certain principles of behavior and you have succeeded today and brought great honor to all of us. Then Saint Peters College breeds in all of you compassion, courage and an educated acceptance of the differences of peoples who populate our globe and more importantly differences of ideas. You must never forget these simple guiding principles and you must never forget the value of this Jesuit education as you enter the world to lead and change societies according to them.Good luck to all of you, Congratulations and may God be with you.