Cynthia J. Starks, executive speechwriter

I once heard an accomplished actor interviewed about what he and other actors hope for in the scripts they receive. He said actors hope for “moments.” They don’t expect an entire script to be filled with deathless prose, he said. Instead, they look for a magic “moment” or two when they are given something important, profound, funny or wonderful to say that illuminates the human condition and resonates with the audience.

I thought about this recently when a fellow communicator asked me to name my favorite speeches and/or speakers. Jesse Jackson immediately came to mind; he has always held a special place in my heart as a speaker of passion, power and poetry.

In his address at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta on July 19, 1988, Jackson spoke about how hard the poor really work. “They catch the early bus,” he said. I was able to quote this line to my communications friend because it has stayed with me from the day I first heard it, 23 years ago.

“They catch the early bus” came to mind recently when former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting a housekeeper at a Sofitel hotel in New York City.

When Strauss-Kahn made a court appearance to face charges, a number of New York City hotel maids came out to show support for the victim. This is the picture The New York Times ran of them.

It’s clear the poor people who “catch the early bus” are still mostly members of minority groups.  Little has changed in this regard since Jackson’s remarks. Here’s what he said in 1988:

“Most poor people are not on welfare. Some of them are illiterate and can’t read the want-ad sections. And when they can, they can’t find a job that matches the address. They work hard every day.

“I know. I live amongst them. I’m one of them. I know they work. I’m a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day.

“They raise other people’s children. They work every day.

“They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive dangerous cabs. They work every day. They change the beds you slept in in these hotels last night and can’t get a union contract. They work every day.

“No, no, they are not lazy! Someone must defend them because it’s right, and they cannot speak for themselves. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans. They clean out their commodes. No job is beneath them, and yet when they get sick they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America, that is not right. We are a better Nation than that. We are a better Nation than that.”

Reading the stories about the attack on the hotel maid and seeing that picture in The Times reminded me that great lines from great speeches can live far beyond the moment. Sometimes they are so true for so long they become timeless.

“They catch the early bus” is one such line. It is a magic moment.

In the next speech you write, look to provide your speaker with a “moment” – a true, heartfelt, vulnerable moment that expresses an eternal, human truth.

You will never know how long it may live on and how many people it may affect over time.

{ 1 comment }

Movies have been supplying me with topics for my speechwriting blog lately. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote on speechwriting lessons in writing powerful openings from Water for Elephants. Today, it’s Mel Gibson’s new film, The Beaver.

In The Beaver, Gibson plays terminally depressed toy-company CEO Walter Black who finds a beaver puppet in a Dumpster after he’s kicked out of his house by his fed-up wife, Meredith (Jodi Foster). Claiming that he’s under the care of a “prescription puppet,” Walter begins interacting with everyone exclusively through The Beaver, who is as chipper, positive and loving as Walter has been depressed, miserable and remote.

A subplot in The Beaver concerns Walter’s son, Porter (Anton Yelchin), a high school senior who’s paid by fellow classmates to write their term papers and is known among his clients as someone who can capture anyone’s voice.

One day, Nora (Jennifer Lawrence), a beautiful and accomplished student, hires Porter to write the graduation speech she must give as class valedictorian.

Like all good speechwriters, Porter wants to find out more about Nora in order to write her remarks. He asks her what she wants to talk about, what’s important to her. He discovers she’d been thrown out of school at one point because she was caught painting graffiti on public buildings.

Soon, Porter learns that Nora’s older brother died of a drug overdose and this is the heartache she carries and seeks to express through her graffiti art.

Porter uses all of this in the speech he writes for her, which comes near the close of the film. Nora begins the way all good speeches do – by laying out “the problem.” She talks about her brother’s death and speaks of what happens when life throws you a curveball, when things don’t go well, when something dreadful happens. She speaks of the pain which she, and many of us, carry.

Then she moves to “the solution.” When you believe you’re all alone, remember there are people who love you, care about you, want to help you. Her “call to action?” Let them.

I liked the speech Porter wrote and Nora gave. The real lesson in it for speakers is this: Let yourself be vulnerable. Share something that’s hard to share. Something that requires a leap of faith. A truth that resonates with the audience. It will make your speech powerful, memorable and meaningful.

A writer I admire, Anais Nin, puts it this way: “The role of the writer is not to say what we all can say, but to say what we are unable to say.”

Speechwriters and speakers, remember this the next time you write or give a speech. You and your audience will be glad you did.

{ 1 comment }

I am late in coming to Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture.” I remember hearing about this amazing man and his talk when “The Last Lecture” went public late in late 2007, and went on to become a media phenom and best-selling book.   

But I had never read or heard the lecture until I recently picked up the audio CD set from my local library and watched the lecture on YouTube.     

For those unfamiliar with Randy Pausch and “The Last Lecture,” here are the poignant basics: Pausch was a 47-year-old tenured professor of computer science and computer-human interaction at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg. He was married and the father of three young children when he learned the pancreatic cancer he thought was in remission had returned and he had only a few months to live. He gave “The Last Lecture” on Sept. 18, 2007, and died on July 25, 2008.

His talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics were asked to think deeply about what mattered to them, and then give a hypothetical “final talk”, with a topic such as “what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?”  

Pausch called his talk: “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” The dreams he dreamt included being in zero gravity; playing in the NFL; authoring an article in The World Book Encyclopedia; meeting Captain Kirk; winning stuffed animals; and being a Disney Imagineer. By adulthood, he had achieved every one, except playing in the NFL. Instead, he tells of the mighty life lessons he learned from the football coaches of his boyhood.

During the lecture, Pausch is upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons along the way.

In the end, Pausch tells his audience the speech is really for his three young children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe who, with the passing years, might not remember him at all.

These are some of the messages Pausch shares in his last lecture:

• It is an easy time to dream when we are young (and happy) and we should never lose that spirit.
• Experience is what you get if you don’t get what you want.
• When people drive you hard, they care about you.  They want you to be better.  When you are doing a bad job and no one points it out to you, that is when they have given up on you.
• Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.
• Good parents are instrumental for us to achieve our childhood dreams.
• The importance of people versus things (people come first, always!).
• Never ever underestimate the importance of having fun.  Choose to have fun today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter.
• Work and play well with others: (1) tell the truth, (2) apologize (properly), (3) wait, and people will show their good sides.
• Tell the truth – integrity.
• A good apology has three parts.  (a) I am sorry, (b) it was my fault, (c) how do I make it right. Most people neglect the third part and fail to demonstrate sincerity.
• Be patient. No one is pure evil.
• Show gratitude.
• Don’t complain, just work harder.
• If you lead your life the right way, if you live properly, the dreams will come to you.

I love this talk and think Pausch has so much that’s good and worthwhile to share. I mourn the passing of this young, talented, charismatic man and the beautiful family he left behind.

The speech reminds me of an exercise we used to do in school from time to time. It went like this: If you had to write your own obituary, what would you want it to say? How would you want to be remembered?

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, “death has a way of concentrating the mind,” doesn’t it?

I wonder what you or I would want to say or write if we knew our own death was nigh.

{ 1 comment }

My husband and I recently took in the new movie, Water for Elephants, starring a dreamy-looking Robert Pattinson and a looking-too-old-for-him Reese Witherspoon. The movie belongs to German actor Christoph Waltz, however, who plays August, the brutal circus owner/ringmaster desperate to hold onto a dying business at all costs, while his wife, Marlena (Witherspoon), falls into the arms of Jacob (Pattinson), the sensitive veterinarian-to-the-circus- animals.

As a speechwriter, however, I was most struck by the scenes in which Waltz steps into the ring to stir up audience enthusiasm and excitement about the circus acts to come.

Hardly able to contain himself, here is what Waltz’s character says (as written in the screenplay itself):   

“LAAADIIIEEESS AND GENTLEMENNNNN! AND CHILDREN OF ALL AGES. WELCOME TO THE MOST EXTRAVAGANT EXTRAVAGANCY THE HUMAN EYE CAN BEHOLD… WELCOME THE STARS OF THE BENZINI BROTHERS MOST SPECTACULAR SHOW ON EARTH!!!”

The screenplay continues:

“THE EXTRAORDINARY GRANDEUR OF THE SPECTACLE – EVERY ACT, EVERY ANIMAL PARADE IN FULL REGALIA FOR THE AUDIENCE AS THE BAND PLAYS. WE SEE CLOWNS, JUGGLERS, ACROBATS, EXOTIC ANIMALS, HIGH DIVERS DIVING INTO A TANK OF WATER…IT IS TRULY SPECTACULAR!”

That’s enough to get anyone’s blood pumping and anticipation running high!

Unfortunately, speechwriters don’t have these devices at our disposal, but perhaps we should emulate the circus ringmaster anyway and work hard on our speech openings to draw in the audience and fill them with anticipation about the remarks to come.

Instead, we often open our speeches this way: “Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I’m happy to be here today. First, let me thank the Wisenheimer Foundation for inviting me to speak to you today. In particular, I’d like to thank Hugo Magnet, chairman of the board of the Wisenheimer Foundation. Hugo has done and continues to do a wonderful job of raising funds for the worthy causes supported by the foundation. Let me also acknowledge some of the other leaders with us today. In the audience are Mayor Joe Schmoe, Representative Audrey Liverpool and State Senator Mario DaDario…  Blah, blah and more blah.

Instead, perhaps we should take a page from the circus-master’s book and begin the talk with the most exciting piece of information we’ve got. An anecdote, a story, a question, a striking statistic, a joke. Some suggest beginning the speech with the ending you’ve planned. The call to action, the “ask.”

I’d love to know how you begin the speeches you write for your executives. How do you get the audience immediately involved? How do you “reel them in” and make them well-disposed to hearing what your speaker has to say?    

Don’t make me crack my ringmaster’s whip, now…

{ 0 comments }

Yesterday morning I posted a blog about the humorous remarks President Obama gave at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Then, on a quiet Sunday night, history arrived. The killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops at a mansion in Pakistan stunned and surprised us, and called forth both strong and heartfelt remarks by our President. The New York Times reports he wrote the speech himself.

He did a beautiful job. He began in a straightforward manner: “Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden…”

Next, he drew a picture of the dark day for which bin Laden was responsible: “It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history.”

Then, in elegiac prose, the President recalled the lingering pain of the deaths on that day, “the empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us.”

He thanked the military: “Over the past 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort” – referring to the war against Al Qaeda to “protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.”

And throughout his remarks, Obama wove in the “American Story” – who we are as a people, what we stand for. He said, “In our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.”

He continued, “The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens.” And later, “Americans understand the cost of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and our allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are…”

Near the conclusion of his remarks, he said, “Today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people. Tonight we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history…”

Finally, “Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

A beautiful, beautiful speech. At its heart, it told a story. Not just the story of the killing of Osama bin Laden, but our story – the story of the American people. We are a peaceful people. We suffered a vicious, unprovoked attack. Because we are a good and great nation, committed to justice and the safety of our people, we pursued Osama bin Laden. Even though it took 10 years, we did not give up. This is who we are. We can do anything we set our minds to do. And we are this way because we are one nation, indivisible, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

In my blog about the remarks the President gave at the Correspondents’ Dinner, I mentioned that speechwriters live for events like that – where they can let their hair down and write funny stories and anecdotes based on popular culture, current news and newsmakers.

But on a more regular basis, speechwriters also live to tell stories like this one – not about Osama bin Laden’s death, of course – but stories that should be at the heart of every speech. Why we do what we do. Why we care. Who benefits. Why it uplifts us and calls upon the “better angels” of our nature.

A speaker’s audience, no matter who it is – employees, customers, industry peers – wants to be reminded that they can make a difference in the world. That they are part of something larger than themselves. It is the speaker’s job – and the speechwriter’s – to articulate this through the stories they tell.

What stories should your speakers be telling? How can you help them do so?

{ 7 comments }

At last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Barack Obama had a great time making fun of “Birthers” with a clever opening music video which prominently featured a flashing “long-form” birth certificate and images of baseball, soldiers, children and more set to “I Am An American.”

Following this, he said he’d go one step further and release a video of his “actual birth,” which turned out to be the birth of Simba in the Lion King. “That’s a joke,” Obama dead-panned, as the video ended.

The President made fun of the ways in which he is characterized, as “professorial,” for example, by saying he “had a reading assignment for them…” For those who accused him of arrogance, he said he had a cure for that — “my poll numbers.”

He proceeded to his real target of the evening – Donald Trump, a villain of the Birther movement. In a hilarious two minutes, Obama skewered Trump in clever ways, including equating the decisions Trump makes on “Celebrity Apprentice” to the decisions he makes as President. He suggested having the “Birther” issue closed down could free up Trump to focus on more important things — including if the moon-landing really took place, the true story of Rozwell, and what really happened to Biggie and Tupac.

Listening to Obama’s clever remarks, I found myself envying his speechwriters. I bet they live all year for the chance to “play” with these remarks. Using pop culture references, clever music and visuals and Obama’s own sense of humor, they have the opportunity to let loose and come up with a wonderful product.

I think we “regular” speechwriters can take a cue from Obama’s speechwriters in this regard. We also need to let our creative juices flow, reference popular culture, music, history, be on our best game and encourage our speakers to take a few chances. It can make the difference between a “ho-hum” talk and a memorable speech.

Below is a video of Obama’s two minutes on Trump. Enjoy.     

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/obama-zings-trump-at-gala/?hp

{ 0 comments }

In my last blog, I explained I was taking a holiday from writing about speechwriting for two weeks; this is the second. Last week I wrote about the relationship between the Lincoln assassination and the Easter story, based on a wonderful article I had read by John F. Andrews.

This week, I’d like to explore another topic – the crosses we bear in life, what helps us deal with them, and the grace that’s always in the mix. My examples are three, which, as all writers know, is a magic number. Three on a match, three little pigs, three persons in one divine God.

The first is the story of Raymond Dunn, the so-called “Gerber Boy,” who died in 1995 at the age of 20. According to an AP story, “Dunn was born with a broken skull and a brain that had been deprived of oxygen; he was not supposed to live a year. His twisted, cramped body never grew beyond 38 pounds and four feet. He suffered dozens of seizures a day and slept two or three hours a night.

“He moved only with help, saw only shadows. His expression ranged from a painful grimace to a slight smile. His only sounds were snorts, gurgles and wheezes. His biggest problem was his allergy to virtually all food,” except for one – MBF, for meat-based formula – which Gerber stopped making in 1985.

“By 1988, Mrs. Dunn had hunted down every can she could find and Gerber had exhausted its backlog. The mother begged Gerber to make more.

“Finally, in 1990, the company agreed. Research division volunteers put their own projects on hold, hauled out old equipment and devoted several days of production time and space to Raymond’s MBF. They even had to go to Washington to get USDA approval for the label.”

After Raymond’s death, a Gerber nutritionist was asked why she and her colleagues devoted such effort to a market of one. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” she replied.

At his death his mother said, “I’m proud he was my son. I’m grateful God gave me that honor. I wouldn’t have traded it.”

Mary might have said the same at the foot of the cross. Mrs. Dunn had a difficult cross to bear; she bore it with love and perseverance. And all those who helped lighten her load did so from compassionate hearts committed to “love thy neighbor.”

A second story recently caught my eye. “Loss of Speech Evokes the Voice of a Writer,” (NYT, March 6) concerns a fellow named Neil Selinger who quit his job as a lawyer three years ago to write and do volunteer work. One year later, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Since then, “he has deteriorated with heartbreaking speed from cane to walker to wheelchair, to pureed food, an inability to speak and almost total immobility.”

As in Raymond Dunn’s life, there is grace at work in Neil Selinger’s – “particularly the way friends, neighbors, and fellow writers have supported him in ways that have rearranged his view of the world.

“As my muscles weakened, my writing became stronger,” he recently wrote. “As I slowly lost my speech, I gained my voice. As I diminished, I grew. As I lost so much, I finally started to find myself.”    

During this Lenten and Easter season, Christians are called to let go, to “die to self” as a way of identifying with and showing gratitude to the suffering Christ on the Cross.  

When illness and disease force that letting go upon us it can be so very painful and difficult. But those like Neil Selinger come to know in a very concrete way that losing ourselves is the only way to find ourselves.    

My final story. In 1980, my friend Jim Sinocchi was working in IBM’s sales support in New York City and was also an assistant swimming coach at City College of New York. In December of that year, he went with the swim team to Puerto Rico and broke his neck body surfing. He had two unsuccessful surgeries in Puerto Rico, was read his last rites, and came home paralyzed from the neck down. Today, he has use of both his hands and arms.  

In addition, he’s risen through the ranks of IBM and is Director of Workforce Communications there. Married with children, two years ago Jim brought home Veronique, a beautiful Labrador-Golden Retriever mix – a service dog from Canine Companions for Independence.

In a recent blog, Jim tells how Veronique has changed his life.

“I didn’t want a service dog. I didn’t think I needed one. Today, I can’t imagine my life without her. Besides the incredible basic things she does, like picking up objects from the floor, as small as a dime, or opening and closing doors, she has given me more confidence to function as I go about my day. I am a better driver because of her. I began to relax more as she drove in the car with me. And when I am alone, which I insist on and treasure, my family takes some comfort in knowing that I really am not alone, as Veronique will look out for me.”  

These three stories – of Raymond Dunn, Neil Selinger and Jim Sinocchi – illuminate one of life’s great paradoxes. Sometimes our cross becomes our glory; our vulnerability becomes our strength. Our differences allow us to teach some mighty lessons.

And grace – mediated by the Holy Spirit through a loving mother, a company that hauls out old equipment to make something you cannot live without, friends who support you or a dog who serves you – is always, always at work.   

Happy Easter.

{ 0 comments }

Sometimes a topic captures my imagination, and (don’t tell), it’s not even about speechwriting. What’s a speechwriting blogger to do? Risk damaging your brand, warns my husband.

But writing is an endeavor of the heart that responds to its own inner callings. So, this week and next I’m on official holiday from writing about speechwriting. I hope you, gentle reader, will not abandon me.

Today I’ll explore a topic I find fascinating: The relationship between the Easter Story and the Civil War.   

Maybe it’s because yesterday was Palm Sunday and Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on Palm Sunday, 1865. Maybe it’s because Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre six days later, on Good Friday. Maybe it’s because the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War is much in the news.  

Whatever it is, I’ve recently been struck by how the themes of Easter – suffering, death, rebirth and redemption – repeat themselves in our history and in our lives.

Let me explain…

In the April 14 issue of theatlantic.com, an article on “Lincoln’s Assassination: Is Shakespeare to Blame?” refers us back to a fascinating 1990 piece by John F. Andrews, called “Was the Bard Behind It?” There, the author links John Wilkes Booth with both the character of Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus. He also draws connections between Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ, and Shakespeare and The Bible.

Booth was descended from an 18^th century British radical, John Wilkes, “who had supported the secessionist rebellion that established a new nation on these shores,” writes Andrews. “There can be little doubt that John Wilkes Booth looked to his contentious predecessor for inspiration during the Confederacy’s effort to sever unwanted political bonds.”

“But Booth,” Andrews continues, “responded to even deeper stirrings, with a more classical source. His father, the eminent Junius Brutus Booth, had been given a name that identified him with both the legendary founder of the Roman Republic (Lucius Junius Brutus) and the descendant who fought to preserve that republic half a millennium later (Marcus Junius Brutus). The elder Booth in turn had bestowed the same appellation on the oldest of his American sons…”

Just five months before he assassinated Lincoln, Andrews tells us, Booth had spoken the eulogy for Brutus at the end of Julius Caesar when he starred, along with his two brothers, in its production at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City – a production to raise funds for a Central Park statue to commemorate the 300^th anniversary of the Bard’s birth.  

On the night of the assassination, Booth stopped at a local bar for a drink where he was teased by an acquaintance there who said that the young Booth would “never be as great as his father.” Booth replied, “When I leave the stage, I will be the most talked about man in America.”

“And so he was,” Andrews writes. “As he fled across the boards of Ford’s Theatre to the horse that awaited him in the alley, he must have been convinced that he had identified himself forever with the role that Shakespeare had scripted for antiquity’s most notable assassin.”

Instead, he had cast himself in the role of antiquity’s most infamous villain – Judas. “The night that Booth had selected for his deed was April 14, Good Friday, and the symbolism of that date contributed immeasurably to the rapidity with which his victim came to be enshrined as a martyr,” writes Andrews.  

“The President’s redemptive qualities were emphasized in one sermon after another. Inevitably, the name of his killer became associated not with “the noblest Roman,” but with Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, who had been placed by Dante, in The Inferno, alongside Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of hell.”       

Andrews continues, “Ironically, Dante was not the only poet to imply a connection between Brutus and Judas. Shakespeare had hinted at the same analogy through several echoes of the Gospels in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare had Caesar invite his “Friends” to “taste some Wine” with him before they all set out for the Capitol. Shakespeare had arranged to have the bloodletting occur at “the ninth hour.” And after Brutus’s decision to let Mark Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral, Shakespeare has Cassius admonish him, “You know not what you do!”        

Booth killed Lincoln because he believed “the President was determined to destroy the Constitution, set aside the rights reserved to the states, crush civil liberties, and restore monarchy,” Andrews tells us. The Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death for similar political reasons – they were afraid he would usurp their earthly power.   

Other connections? Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife, had a dream in which she saw a statue of Caesar flowing with blood and many Romans washing their hands in it. 

The wife of Pontius Pilate had a dream. From yesterday’s Palm Sunday readings (St. Matthew’s Gospel): “While he (Pilate) was seated on the bench, his wife sent him a message, ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him.’” 

And early in the week of his assassination, Lincoln told his wife about a dream in which he saw a President shrouded on a catafalque in the East Room of the White House. “Mrs. Lincoln was terrified by what sounded like a portent, and her husband regretted sharing his nightmare with her,” Andrews writes.

Alas, none of the dreams made a difference in history’s outcomes. Lincoln, a student of Shakespeare and an admirer of MacBeth, said shortly before his death that he understood the fatalism of the Prince of Denmark, remarking, “I have found all my life, as Hamlet says, ‘There is a Divinity that shapes our ends/Rough-hew them how we will.’”

“With unintended irony, one writer lauded Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, by citing the same tribute John Wilkes Booth had delivered over the corpse of Brutus a few months before the assassination: ‘His life was gentle, and the Elements/So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up/And say to all the World, ‘This was a Man!’”

Finally, both Lincoln and Jesus were martyrs who sacrificed, suffered and died in the cause of peace and human redemption – In Lincoln’s case redeeming the South from the sin of slavery; in the case of Jesus, redeeming mankind from all the sins committed since Adam and Eve’s original one.

In a beautiful song of the Easter Vigil, the “Exsultet,” we sing, “This is the night, when first you saved our fathers: you freed the people of Israel from their slav’ry and led them dry-shod through the sea.”

The hymn continues, “Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.” And in another time and place, we might add, his adopted son, Abraham Lincoln, as well.

In short, as Franciscan Father Richard Rohr writes in his book of the same name, “Everything Belongs.”

{ 2 comments }

In the April 3 issue of The Catholic Moment, my Indianapolis archdiocesan newspaper, Christine Capecchi writes about her favorite part of the upcoming commencement season – the “prospect of a send-off speech that summarizes the past four years and prepares for all the remaining ones. An address that wipes away distractions – the sweltering heat, silly stilettos, stiff chairs – and makes us all feel promising and powerful.”

She adds, “My hope is to be surprised, to be challenged and delighted by something original, free of cliché and the standard quote recipe (JFK + MLK + Helen Keller).”

I suspect Capecchi has not heard many contemporary commencement addresses, or she would know that speakers such as Steve Jobs at Stanford, Will Ferrell, J.K. Rowling and Bill Gates at Harvard, Jodi Foster and Bono at UPenn, Ellen DeGeneres at Tulane or Jon Stewart at William and Mary don’t typically quote JFK, MLK or Helen Keller.

Jodi Foster ended her commencement address at UPenn on May 15, 2006, with this quote from Eminem’s “Lose Yourself:”

You better lose yourself in the music
The moment you own it you better never let it go, oh
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
Cuz opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.

Capecchi demonstrates she’s a girl after my own heart, however, revealing her favorite commencement speech is really Dr. Seuss’s book, Oh, The Places You’ll Go! Mine too.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is a fabulous template for a commencement address. It covers all the bases. 

 It begins on an up note: “Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”

But not so fast, Seuss cautions, “Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. Except when you don’t, because sometimes you won’t. I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true. That Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.”

Seuss tells us that “slumps” are part of life and so is something he calls “The Waiting Place,” where people are “Waiting for a train to go, or a bus to come, or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go, or the phone to ring or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow.

“Waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break, or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance…”

Indeed. In these difficult times, many of us are waiting for a “better break” and “another chance.” For an interview, a job, a new client, for the price of gas to drop, a house to sell, our boys to come home from the wars, for our ship to come in.  

Seuss’s conclusion? “But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On and on you will hike and I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed. 98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.”  

Alas, some of us will and some of us won’t succeed. But perhaps that’s too much candor for a commencement address.

Christine Capecchi puts it this way, “We walk the path of the saints, who turned their dreams into deeds – whether there was rain or snow, whether they heard yes or no. We heed God’s call to action, his summons to use our talents and not bury them. And we hold the banner high, with a Seuss-like bravado, so the new graduates can see where to go.”

Yo, Eminem?

{ 1 comment }