My Graduation Speech

To launch my first (and hopefully last) blog, here is the speech I gave at my Graduation this June in its entirety, errors and all... Enjoy...

Fatherhood

Carina was supposed to speak today about motherhood and Gutenberg and how her experience at the school was going to prepare her for that journey. However, that journey began for her two days ago so she is unable to speak here tonight. As a class we are excited for her and wish her her new family all the best.

Instead, in her place, I have the honor of briefly speaking tonight about how I understand Gutenberg to have shaped and prepared me to be a father.  

At this point in my life, I can confidently say that I am a father. Unfortunately, this is the majority of my concrete knowledge of fatherhood.

But this is ok. At Gutenberg I read about Socrates and how he always insisted that the only thing he knew for sure was that he was ignorant, and the first thing I learned from Gutenberg was to accept and embrace my ignorance. This is the first step towards true learning. Socrates is good company, but I did not learn how to live this from a book.

Freshman year at Gutenberg, I was extremely immature and foolish. You see I had believed the lie that the best things in life are the things that come the easiest, with no strings attached, free. I had no concept of responsibility, not because my family failed to offer me one, but because I did not want such a thing to exist. Gutenberg, the tutors and the community here, helped me take the first ardous steps on the road towards personal resposibility. Without their kindness and patience, I doubt I would be a father today.

Let me explain.

I first was able to see responsibility in action, when the tutors of Gutenberg continuously respected and encouraged me despite my irresponsibility. From the beginning, I was combatitive and hostile, often blatently disrespectful. The tutors never stoped listening to me, despite the obvious fact that I had nothing to say. I remember one student evaluation in particular, that freshman year. Several of the tutors challenged me, they saw that I was struggling and making poor decisions, and they said this to me. Their confrontation, backed up by the patience and commitment they showed in class everyday was the spark I needed to begin the journey toward personal responsibility. For this spark I am forever in their debt.

What I realized in that student evaluation, was the tutors saw me as a real, concrete person, someone who was inherently valuable. They did not owe this to me, but they gave it anyway.

In seeing the responsibility of the tutors to me and my classmates, I began to learn what it meant to be patient, to be kind, to be forgiving, to be respectful. These virtues meant nothing to me outside of the context of their responsibility.

Thus, the second aspect of fatherhood, and of parenting in general, that Gutenberg has prepared me for is this: to be personally responsible toward my children. The old fear of responsibility is gone, now I anticipate with joy the challenges that lie ahead, and I have learned to have the same confidence about myself that the tutors showed me.

This venture, into the unknown world of parenting, is something my generation almost universally dreads. Children today are unwanted, many are killed before they are even born and when allowed to live they are often neglected and abused. I think the root cause of this epidemic of abortions and indifference is found in the fear of responsibility that our generation has embraced. This is understandable but not commendable. After all, it is a terrible thing to be responsible for bringing children into a world where starving countries, environmental holocaust and potential nuclear war are all present realities.

But this does not excuse us, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.” He also said that “Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”

Raising a child, no doubt requires much thought, and though Gutenberg has helped me to be a better thinker, this is not the most important part of the legacy that it has left for me and my child. Through the actions of the tutors, my classmates and the wider community, Gutenberg has prepared me for the action that springs from a readiness for responsibility. My classmates and I are better because of it. From all of our children present and future:

Thank you.