Congratulations! We are very proud of you. You are taking some part of us—some part of this wonderful place—with you. Know that you will always be welcome here, and please come back often.

I am honored to have met some of your family members at events during the weekend. They are proud folks, and today’s celebration is for them as well.

As you are leaving Elsah, I am coming back. Yet we face many of the same challenges and have many of the same opportunities.

As you may know, this is the seventy-fifth graduation for College students at Principia. As we look forward to the next seventy-five, we need your help and hope you will stay in touch. I may be unique among graduation speakers this season, for a few reasons. First, I am carrying my own graduation photo from my graduation on this same stage thirty years ago. Second, since I will be at Principia for a while, I expect to see you again and will be actively tracking your progress with great interest.

When I was on campus in April, I had an interesting experience meeting with the College archivist. Her first order of business on the neatly typed agenda was “Sheaf, 1978.” She then asked if I remembered my senior picture in the yearbook—you know the one you can choose to send in— that picture worth a thousand words. Then she showed me mine—all the gray from my hair and beard was gone, and I was in a three-piece suit with lapels out to my shoulders, sitting behind the desk in the College President’s office. So, remember, one of you sitting out there today may well be standing here thirty years from now—or sooner.

Like so many others on similar occasions at this time of year, I have thought about what I could say that might have real and lasting meaning for you. That is a daunting challenge, which I am not sure how to engage; instead, let me share briefly ideas that have had a profound impact on me in the hopes that they will touch your hearts as well. The unifying message from all of these ideas is the evidence of the still, small voice.

I was wrestling with whether to give the Spark Notes version of this talk or the longer version, so I’m going with something in between. But for those of you who always want a shortcut, here’s the Spark Notes version: Congratulations. Always will be embraced by Principia. Weatherman. Detective. Honor. Leadership. Heritage. “Pay Attention.” Electrocution. Early career. Watch out for technology. Overcome negative influences. Power vs. Authority. Doing vs. Being Right. Why you matter. Listen for the still, small, voice. So much for Spark Notes.

You have been described as a generation that grew up on technology, that you are multitasking, Googling, Facebooking YouTubeans. You do multiple things at once—texting, watching videos, looking at pictures, surfing websites across multiple windows within multiple technologies. What I would like to talk about today is keeping that upper left-hand window of your interface filled with the still, small voice.

My own experience at Principia included interactions with a number of people who have been crucial to my development, including faculty, staff, and other students.

The dean of men reminded me to look at every job—dishwasher, waiter, office worker—as an opportunity to be the best I could possibly be.

The dean of the College gave me a book that still has a prominent place on my shelf—New Ways of Managing Conflict. It’s about how to work with people, include people, and listen to people. God gave us two ears but only one mouth. Some people say that's because He wanted us to spend twice as much time listening as talking. Others claim it's because He knew listening was twice as hard as talking.

A faculty member in theater taught me how to breathe and how to listen, both crucial elements in acting and, as it turns out, outside of acting as well. Alan Alda suggests that real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. There is a story in Arabic that tells of a pupil who asked a wise man how to become a good conversationalist. The sage replied, "Listen, my son." After waiting a while, the pupil said, "I am listening. Please continue your instruction." The sage smiled, "There is no more to tell."

And fellow students taught me to listen and to better understand the union of the masculine and feminine qualities—in governing the student body and in individual relationships.

I suspect you have had many similar experiences and that these have prepared you well for the next steps you are about to take. These experiences have been part of meeting the expected outcomes of a Principia education: an effective Christian Scientist, a public-spirited citizen, an inspired learner, and an individual of refined moral character.You are prepared to recognize the still, small voice when you hear it.

So, reluctant as I am to use a sports metaphor, it’s a memorable way to underscore our role in listening for the still, small voice. Both our kids played soccer in elementary school, and perhaps many of you remember how that works when they first start out at say five- or six-years-old. It’s “herd ball,” right? One team we were involved with when our son was five limited the number of players on the field to three per side, which reduced the confusion somewhat, but then we moved, and the number of players on the field increased, as did the confusion!

One soccer mom felt she had the key, though. At regular intervals she would simply yell to her young son, “Pay attention!” Now, I’ll admit that her voice was neither still nor small, but I’d submit to you that systematically checking our thought to be sure that we’re alert and that we’re paying attention to what’s true keeps us receptive to the angel message, to the still, small voice we need. And it helps to know that when we’re really clear about it, we recognize that we include the intelligence and discernment to give voice to the truth as well, in the way that’s most needed for whatever situation we encounter.

The still, small voice first appears in the Bible in the story of Elijah. Remember, he’s the last guy standing against the prophets of Baal. The king has issued his death warrant, and he is so discouraged that he goes to hide in a cave. Hard to know whether having him stand in the cave in front of an earthquake, great wind, and a fire is God’s way of cheering him up, but in the end he hears the “still small voice” and is one of only a handful of people in the Bible credited with healing and raising the dead. Quite a turnaround for this guy. (See I Kings 19:11, 12.)

Isaiah suggests that you will hear a voice when you need it saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it” (Isa. 30:21).

As you practice listening for the still, small voice, I encourage you to have a clear sense of mission. One of my favorite examples of understanding the concept of mission is from a story of a group visiting NASA in the early 1960s. They were taken with the technical gadgetry and the noble ambitions of the scientists, engineers, and astronauts they met. Yet the most impressive interaction was a chance meeting in the hallway with a custodian who was pushing his pail of dirty water and mops after a long day of cleaning. They asked him what his job was, and he quickly answered, “To put a man on the moon.” That is mission.

You all have a mission, too. Listen for it. Your current accomplishment brings with it special responsibilities and opportunities. You have a charge of stewardship, given the talent and potential you already possess and the influence you will wield.

Knowledge is power, but it also brings responsibility. Mary Kimball Morgan, Principia’s founder, would expect you to “learn to live with skill” (Education at The Principia, p. 161).

In addition to the skills developed, the techniques learned, and the amount of raw data handled and analyzed, we hope the process you have been through at Principia College has also begun to develop a keen perspective—perspicacity is the word Mrs. Eddy used, meaning keen perspective and judgment. With this perspective come new insights into the people, products, programs, and places you will encounter throughout your careers.

You have been exposed to “academics of the right sort.”  Mrs. Eddy referred to these when she wrote, “Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal”(Science and Health, p. 195).

These “academics of the right sort” have taught you to make some key distinctions—distinctions that make an important difference in how we approach our lives, careers, and families. For example, there is a difference between being right and doing right. Academics often have a tendency to focus on being right— getting the right answer on a test or being the victor in a debate. In a recent talk, Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia suggested that doing right has the opportunity to engage, make mistakes, and be optimistic, while being right is narrower, often closing off discussion and being pessimistic about possible outcomes. Listening for that still, small voice that lets us do right while recognizing that being right is truly God’s province, gives us the direction we need and allows us to be effective in all our interactions.

Academics of the right sort also distinguish between power and authority. For example, in India the English had power, but Gandhi had authority. In an essay written in 1988, Brian McKinley discusses the significance of this: “[Gandhi] had no army, no political power, no money, but he was able to guide his people to independence from England. England had massive power, but Gandhi had authority. Gandhi's authority was so strong that it also helped heal some of the religious strife in India. One time, after a battle between Hindus and Muslims, a Hindu man asked Gandhi what he should do to heal the situation. Gandhi told him to find an orphaned Muslim and raise him—as a Muslim. Instead of ignoring Gandhi and continuing to fight, he, and many others, did just that.” This is a wonderful example of, as McKinley puts it, “working from authority, rather than power, by being willing to give up being right and, instead, working for the benefit of . . . society as a whole” (“When Being Right Is Wrong,” www.elroy.net).

The still, small voice will also be an important part of establishing your position of leadership—at work, at home, and in the community. Peter Drucker suggests that leadership is the lifting of one’s vision to higher sights. The leader who basically focuses on herself or himself is going to mislead. Three of the most charismatic leaders of the past century—Hitler, Stalin, and Mao—inflicted more suffering than almost any other trio in history. What matters is not the leader’s charisma, because leadership is not magnetic personality—that can just as well be demagoguery. It is not making friends and influencing people—that is flattery. Leadership is the raising of performance to a higher standard. Nothing better prepares the ground for such leadership than confirming in day-to-day practice strict principles of conduct and responsibility, high standards of performance, and respect for the individual and her work (see The Daily Drucker, p. 50). Which is exactly what you learned to do at Principia.

You have grown during your time at Principia, and you are about to understand just how much you have grown. You are now part of Principia’s heritage. Heritage passes to an heir by course of law. In Scripture the people of God are called His heritage, claimed by Him as the objects of His special care.   

I think this was the kind of heritage and inheritance that Mrs. Eddy was thinking about when she urged, in Pulpit and Press, “Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love” (p. 3, emphasis added). Your heritage as a child of God gives you that “sovereign power to think and act rightly,” the power to do right (not just strive to be right) that is guided by—you guessed it—the still, small voice.

As you take your rightful positions of leadership and claim this heritage, you will be called upon to make tough decisions. Historically, these decisions have often been referred to as making an honorable choice. Honor has been a topic of discussion and definition throughout the ages—from Biblical commandments, to medieval rules of conduct, to Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment prose and poetry.

Wordsworth defines honor as “the finest sense / Of 'justice' which the human mind can frame.” Rabelais speaks of those with honor who “have a natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice.”

I like to think of what Principia’s motto—“As the sowing, the reaping”—would mean to Da Vinci, who in the early sixteenth century also captured the connection between action and honor when he said, “Who sows virtue reaps honor.”

A more recent definition of honor, from Walter Lippmann, captures the call to action more fully. It emphasizes holding yourself “to an ideal of conduct even though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.”

Not surprisingly, then, honor is expected of you as Principia College graduates. Honor reflected in a life led with personal integrity, strength of character, and ethical behavior. Honor expressed in altruism, social responsibility, and service.

As graduates in the twenty-first century, you are being asked to make your imprint in a world that is full of interesting—but often addictive and confusing— technology. As an IT professor by trade, I know something about this.

As YouTubeans and some of the fastest thumbs ever recorded, you experience technology on a regular basis—most estimates suggest you have already sent more text messages than the number of letters you will ever write. I encourage you not to become “a tool of your tools,” to paraphrase Thoreau.

Many of those involved with the development of the technologies that now so bemuse the mind have made similar comments. For example, a major software developer suggests that a lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo. And a long-standing adage at IBM reminds us, “Computers WORK, people THINK.”

To put this in a more global context, remember that for half the people in the world, the nearest telephone is a two-day walk. So let’s use technology as an enabler of what we hope to accomplish, but not let it get in the way of our hearing as clearly as possible the still, small voice.

So let’s take a little more time with that still, small voice. Mrs. Eddy talked about its reach: “The ‘still, small voice’ of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound” (Science and Health, p. 559).

Listening for and listening to the still, small voice may get harder when you leave Elsah; it may even have been hard while you were in Elsah. The distractions of earthquake, wind, and fire take different forms as your career and life progress. If your mission is to serve the Cause of Christian Science, your mission includes listening for that still, small voice.

How do we hear the still, small voice? Mrs. Eddy said that “Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are silent” (Science and Health, p. 89). Where and when will you hear it? We read in Science and Health, “The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, ‘as when a lion roareth.’ It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear. . . . Then is the power of Truth demonstrated, — made manifest in the destruction of error” (p. 559).

So let’s look at some examples of how the still, small voice made it to the twenty-first century.

Maybe you will hear it in regard to your career choices. Your preparation as thinkers, writers, readers, communicators, and listeners has been first-rate at Principia. I have visited some of your classes, seen the results of your studies abroad, and know that you are ready to exhibit and reflect the intended outcomes of a Principia education.

I understand some of you are heading for further study, others to travel, others to work, and yet others undecided or uncertain. The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well, which by all accounts you have.

I remember a Christian Science Journal article by David Sleeper, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher, which discussed early careers. He said that when he was finishing his degree, everything looked rosy: he had passed the CPA exam, and a leading firm had promised him a job. But suddenly the bottom dropped out, and his prospective employer withdrew the offer due to a downturn in business. Eventually, he went to a Reading Room, so discouraged he felt he didn’t even know how to pray. He opened a bound volume at random and found an article that stressed the need for gratitude. That didn’t really strike him as very relevant or useful, so he picked another article at random. This one, too, focused on gratitude. Given his troubles, he wondered what he had to be grateful for. He did, however, begin to wonder if God was sending him a healing message—a still, small voice.  And he began to admit that there were some things he had to be grateful for—a home, a fine education, health, and being a Christian Scientist.

He began to think more deeply about intelligence—an attribute of divine Mind that is reflected by man. He realized that God not only imparts intelligence but also unfolds to man the opportunity to use that intelligence constructively. You know the ending: he quickly found employment—and not just one offer but several from which to choose. In reflecting on this experience he wondered, “What changed?” and then realized, “I changed!” He continues, “My big mistake was that I thought it was my personal intellectual capacity that enabled me to do well. I failed to acknowledge . . . that man . . . acts in accord with Mind as God’s reflection. . . . God hadn’t been withholding His blessing. He was supporting and directing me all the time. But I had been too self-centered . . . to recognize that” (“God’s direction,” March 1995, pp. 5, 6). But the still small voice is about more than careers.

You might hear it as the son of a friend of ours did. He was a weather officer stationed at sea, and each day he found a place on the large ship to have time with his Bible Lesson. As you may know, there is very little room on ships, so he used what might be called a set of the “still, small books.” Each day he identified and wrote down a specific angel message to help him throughout that particular day. He used these daily insights to pray about his situation and to listen for information that was helpful to him, his shipmates, and others in the water and in the area. This included spotting and rescuing a man who had fallen overboard from another ship. He was rescued alive after more than forty-eight hours in the water, when conventional wisdom suggested survival was possible for no more than about twelve hours. When this naval officer returned home, his briefcase was filled with pieces of paper containing those daily angel messages he had identified, written down, and prayed with during his time at sea.

Or you might hear the still, small voice as a Christian Science police detective did in a major metropolitan area. He was in the vicinity of a crime and started to pray. The thought came to him to “turn left.” He did so, drove a few blocks, and stopped in front of an alley. Suddenly, a man ran out of the alley with a knife in his hand. After a brief chase, the man was apprehended. He was the perpetrator of a crime across town. The detective said he was clearly led to the right place, and in being led—and this is my favorite part—he realized not how useful God could be to him, but how useful he could be to God (see Healing Spiritually, Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1996, pp. 237–38). Isn’t that our prayer, to be directed to action that serves God?

These individuals give us examples of the type of listening that requires scientific thought, which one writer defines as “deep, continuous, systematic spiritual thinking” (Susan F. Campbell, “‘The ‘still, small voice’ of scientific thought,’” Christian Science Sentinel, July 21, 1934, p. 934).

During your time at Principia, you have likely seen Christian Science work—physically, intellectually, and morally. You have also likely seen situations in which you wondered if it did work. Don’t be fooled into thinking it doesn’t work. Embrace your healings. Which is reality to you: when it worked or when it didn’t seem to? If, during your time at Principia, you have taken a math class, then you have also seen situations—on your homework and tests perhaps—when the math worked and when it didn’t! Just as you became better at applying the unfailing, ever-operative law of math as a student, you are getting better at applying the ever-operative law of God.

There is another example of listening to the still, small voice when it said, “Stop.” It’s related in The Christian Science Journal, and it’s about a woman who was a relatively new student of Christian Science. She was reading Science and Health at every opportunity, so her newfound understanding was uppermost in her thoughts. At one period she was alone on her farm, and the power had been disrupted for several days. She went to town to run an errand, and when she returned that night, she decided to enter the house through the kitchen. But “just as she took the first steps, the thought ‘stop’ came to her clearly.” She obeyed this guidance and went around the house to enter through the front door. The next morning the power company found a live wire directly across the path to the back entrance, where two small wild animals had been electrocuted. She recognized that she was learning to naturally listen to—and obey—God’s voice, even without specifically praying that way at that moment (Cora Slaughter, “Listening to the Still Small Voice of Truth,” August 1959, pp. 418–19).

These are, admittedly, dramatic accounts of the still, small voice at work. The relevance for you, I believe, is that these individuals proved, as you will, that they could hear the still, small voice in just the way they needed it right then, with powerful, healing results. That same God-given opportunity is being given to each of us moment-by-moment and we are receptive to it. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure has come to this age through a ‘still, small voice,’ through silent utterances and divine anointing which quicken and increase the beneficial effects of Christianity” (Science and Health, p. 367).

As we know, Principia is a community of practice. You have been practicing a variety of things throughout your time here: dance, art, soccer, language, tennis, piano, baseball, volleyball, singing, having conversations, praying, listening. That practice has paid big dividends in improvement, maturity, and mastery of a variety of skills. As much as it might be nice to tell you that the practice is over and that now you are in the game of life, the practice continues. Sometimes we make great leaps between practice sessions, but more often we make breakthroughs through consistent and persistent practice. When I received class instruction, my teacher talked often about the need for consistent application of what we were learning and about the thinking we did and the prayerful treatments we gave ourselves and the world needing to exhibit a consistent effort. She would often remark that even on days when we did not feel like doing it (and she recognized there would be some), we should do it anyway.

Like the weather officer on the navy ship who wrote down daily angel messages, you have already done much of the writing for what the still; small voice is likely to say to you. It has been written in your Principia experiences. It is established in the principles you have learned, studied, and practiced. As you think clearly and rigorously, you are more likely to hear the still, small voice. You will have to work to dial it in and overcome the static in the communications channel. It may be a little like . . . getting cell phone coverage in Elsah.

You are continuing the ongoing process of what one author called writing “the Gospel according to you.” This unknown author wrote a rather sing-songy poem of that title, an excerpt of which appeared in The Christian Science Monitor awhile back. I almost hesitate to read it in such a sophisticated crowd, but it does point to the immense importance that each of you graduates has for yourself, your family, and the world. Here’s part of it that illustrates my point:

Men read and admire the Gospel of Christ
With its love so unfailing and true.
But what do they say and what do they think
Of the Gospel according to you?
You are writing each day a letter to men –
Take care that the writing is true;
’Tis the only Gospel that some men will read,
That Gospel according to you. (“Why You Matter,” Nov. 19, 2002)

We can help others simply by living our lives in accordance with our highest sense of right. I hope you can let people read you and be inspired and healed as a result.

In Mary Kimball Morgan’s 1923 Principia College commencement address, she quotes from II Corinthians, and it seems so appropriate here: “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men (3:2).” Jesus also suggested very clearly that he expects our book to be read and our light to shine. He said, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid, Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven (Matt. 5:14–16).

So, while you may never serve on a battleship, work as a detective, or face electrocution, you will have numerous opportunities where you will be in a position to listen for the still, small voice. You will want to listen about careers, relationships, where to live, travel plans, voting, volunteering, healing, and changing the world—pursuing your mission. Many times, just a recognition that the voice is there is what is required. What you hear may not always be as specific as these examples, but rather a sense of calm, a clear recognition of who is in control.

The numerous examples of the still, small voice we’ve considered today confirm that it can be heard beyond Elsah, and I am confident that Principia has prepared you to listen for it. Go and listen.