Dreaming a broken world whole

Benediction at Smith School for Social Work Commencement - 2005

The great musican and conductor, Yehudi Menuhin wrote:
"each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration . . ."

And it is somehow, the social worker's vocation to aid us all in this difficult work of transformation, to dream a broken world whole.

May earth below and heaven above hold you.
May wind and light guide you.
May love and anger embolden you.
May you always remember that you are loved and beloved,
blessing and blessed.

Go now in peace to do the work you have been given to do in the world.