More Prayers for a College Year

Benediction delivered at the Smith College Convocation
September 3, 2003, John M. Greene Hall


In her book, The Black Prince, the philosopher and novelist, Iris Murdoch, wrote that the creative struggle, the search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.

If this is true, then a love that would inspire you to devote years of your precious life to parse, observe, dissect, inspect, count, analyze, ponder over, agonize, dream about or be utterly changed by it, is truly an extraordinary love.

If Murdoch is right, then a kind of love has brought here to this moment -- on the threshold of an academic year.

During the days and months ahead,
May this love consume us;
May this love change and transform us;
May it make of us a community, in which each of us is both student and teacher,
Lover and beloved,
Transformational and transformed.

May peace guide your path;
May respect guide your words and guard your actions;
May you have true companions on your search for wisdom and truth
And may wisdom be with you all the days of your life
as you write your own love story.

May it be so.