It goes deeper here
9/11/2006
Everybody talks about relationships and caring, and "ethics of ____" is all the rage as people scurry to cover their bases and other parts. But it goes deeper here.
It's for real.
One of our own, a colleague in our staff, is battling cancer and last Saturday night our Lund Auditorium was a high-energy love-fest with live reggae and folk, rock and classical, baked goodies and people dancing in the aisles—to raise money for our friend's care.
I found out that one of our admissions directors can rock as he brought his band (who knew) and played covers of the Doors, David Bowie, Badfinger and more.
I learned that one of our alums (daughter of a current staff member) has the voice of an angel and that one of our new freshmen can belt out tunes from Rent like the one where she howls at the moon.
I learned that a staffer in the business office has an enchanted flute when it comes to French masters and that our technical director can sit in with his mandolin and bring Stephen Foster and Woodie Guthrie to life accompanying his musical associates "Peter, Paul and Harry."
It just goes deeper here. Somehow as busy as they are, people find time to stop and notice and actually care about each other.
It's simply for real.
Our mission talks about pursuing truth, giving compassionate service and participating in the creation of a more just and humane world and I've seen again and again how, at Dominican, that starts with our own community, with a sustained practice of caring about and for each other. Students were there in the audience Saturday night as well, pitching in and joining in and entering more fully into this place and into relationships with these people.
It's about spirit.
Just a few days earlier I'd been to the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit to inaugurate the academic year and my faculty colleague, Richard Woods, OP, gave a homily so wonderful that I want you to know it and so I'll end citing its conclusion:
In less than a week we will be observing the 5th anniversary of the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That too frames our celebration today, as it must our lives as Americans and citizens of any future world in which the clash of civilizations may prove to be incendiary. It was the London blitz in World War Two that inspired T. S. Eliot to pen one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century, but he could well have been writing of the Twin Towers in this strangely Pentecostal imagery:
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The only discharge from sin and error
The only hope, or the despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
But Eliot reminds us, as he reminded the terror-stricken people of his time, that we are nevertheless in the hands of the God of love, the Spirit of Flame itself:
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wave
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," IV.
Poets have much to teach us. And we have much to learn. And it is the greatest poet of all, the Holy Spirit, who asks within us now, how shall we live? What is the purpose of our life? What values should direct our steps through life? That is why we are here this afternoon — to ponder and celebrate our faith, our love, and our hunger and thirst not only for learning, but for the wisdom, knowledge, counsel, insight and understanding, the courage and reverence that flow from the heart of God. For the Holy Spirit IS our encounter with the living presence of God. The candle flame that figures so prominently in Dominican's symbol and ritual is a reminder of that holy light, just as the rose reminds us of the passion for truth and the expression of truth in love. For if our learning does not blossom into charity, we are wasting our time here. And to the extent that our light flowers in love, we will echo Eliot's final, prophetic promise:
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
— T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," V.
Everybody talks about relationships and caring, and "ethics of ____" is all the rage as people scurry to cover their bases and other parts. But it goes deeper here.
It's for real.
One of our own, a colleague in our staff, is battling cancer and last Saturday night our Lund Auditorium was a high-energy love-fest with live reggae and folk, rock and classical, baked goodies and people dancing in the aisles—to raise money for our friend's care.
I found out that one of our admissions directors can rock as he brought his band (who knew) and played covers of the Doors, David Bowie, Badfinger and more.
I learned that one of our alums (daughter of a current staff member) has the voice of an angel and that one of our new freshmen can belt out tunes from Rent like the one where she howls at the moon.
I learned that a staffer in the business office has an enchanted flute when it comes to French masters and that our technical director can sit in with his mandolin and bring Stephen Foster and Woodie Guthrie to life accompanying his musical associates "Peter, Paul and Harry."
It just goes deeper here. Somehow as busy as they are, people find time to stop and notice and actually care about each other.
It's simply for real.
Our mission talks about pursuing truth, giving compassionate service and participating in the creation of a more just and humane world and I've seen again and again how, at Dominican, that starts with our own community, with a sustained practice of caring about and for each other. Students were there in the audience Saturday night as well, pitching in and joining in and entering more fully into this place and into relationships with these people.
It's about spirit.
Just a few days earlier I'd been to the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit to inaugurate the academic year and my faculty colleague, Richard Woods, OP, gave a homily so wonderful that I want you to know it and so I'll end citing its conclusion:
In less than a week we will be observing the 5th anniversary of the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That too frames our celebration today, as it must our lives as Americans and citizens of any future world in which the clash of civilizations may prove to be incendiary. It was the London blitz in World War Two that inspired T. S. Eliot to pen one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century, but he could well have been writing of the Twin Towers in this strangely Pentecostal imagery:
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The only discharge from sin and error
The only hope, or the despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
But Eliot reminds us, as he reminded the terror-stricken people of his time, that we are nevertheless in the hands of the God of love, the Spirit of Flame itself:
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wave
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," IV.
Poets have much to teach us. And we have much to learn. And it is the greatest poet of all, the Holy Spirit, who asks within us now, how shall we live? What is the purpose of our life? What values should direct our steps through life? That is why we are here this afternoon — to ponder and celebrate our faith, our love, and our hunger and thirst not only for learning, but for the wisdom, knowledge, counsel, insight and understanding, the courage and reverence that flow from the heart of God. For the Holy Spirit IS our encounter with the living presence of God. The candle flame that figures so prominently in Dominican's symbol and ritual is a reminder of that holy light, just as the rose reminds us of the passion for truth and the expression of truth in love. For if our learning does not blossom into charity, we are wasting our time here. And to the extent that our light flowers in love, we will echo Eliot's final, prophetic promise:
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
— T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," V.
