I See You

Middlebury College Commencement was today. The first speaker was one of Quinn's students from Indonesia, Vani Sathisan. She did a good job -so I heard, I was at church- and complemented Quinn as one of her more influential professors. The main speaker was former President Bill Clinton.

(I'll give you minute to work through your feelings about him- good, bad or mixed.)

He gave an uplifting speech in which he said (among other things) that we are all 99.9% the same, genetically speaking. Our actual differences stem from an extremely small part of ourselves and it's important to put our differences in perspective. He said that all the conflict in this world is caused by people who believe that the differences are more important than the things we share in common. He spoke a lot about the idea of community and what is required to achieve it and why it is vital to our world today. He spoke of a place in South Africa where the response to the greeting "Hi, how are you?" is not "Fine, how are you?" but a generous and empowering word that translates as "I see you". He said the challenge of these graduates will be to "see" everyone- basically to refrain from elitism and see all people as equally important.

I quote: “That is what I wish for you. As you save the world, remember all the people in it. If you see everyone, if you believe that we are because others are, if you serve in that spirit, your grandchildren will be here 50 years from now. And it will be even better. Because you will have fulfilled humanity’s first obligation, to honor what is holy about it, and to pass it on.”

So next time I am tempted to think of the differences between me and another person, maybe I can remember that I'm much more like them than not. Basically, we are all God's children and not here to compete against or rule over one another but to work together and build communities.

What does your ideal community look like?

Photo credit: AP Photo/Alden Pellett