A splendid torch

Presidential inauguration address

It’s been 30 years.

The passage of time has been swift, eventful, relentless. It has been defining. It has brought me back home.

I remember Bethel College commencement 1972. Let me tell you what I saw there. It was much like this: There was this stage, aging and marked by the footsteps of Bethel’s history. The sun peering in from the west washing this space with light. The stirring harmonies of the German hymn, “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name,” offering a serious—almost worshipful—tone, even for that era. There were the robes of scholarly distinction. There was tradition. And, there was a young 21-year-old, among many others, with shaky knees and a soul filled with wonder and anticipation, and there was the enduring warmth and power of this place—David Goerz’s Bethel College. I remember reaching out to shake the hand of President Schultz. The diploma. The tassle. I remember him saying, “You are now one of us; you have now joined the community.” And, I remember walking out of this hall, down the deep steps and beginning the journey.

Thirty years.

Once again, today, this stage, aging and marked by footsteps. The scholarly robes. That familiar 18th-century German hymn tune, still gripping. The shaky knees. Wonder and anticipation. Tradition. The warmth and power of this place.

My friends, it is good to be home; it’s good to be part of the community.

It is true that I, as many of you, have gone from this place. We have accepted our degrees and “moved on” as we like to say at commencement. Bethel becomes an alma mater, a part of the past, a page in the scrapbook, a memory. But, I have learned as I have been away and as I have returned this fall that Bethel is not just a college, a place of higher education, a place for finding life-mates, for growing friendships, for hatching memories. It is all of those things, of course. But, it is also a place where character is built, where intellectual curiosity is nurtured, where faith is strengthened. It is a place where we match scholarship with personalities and gifts of humor and mischief. A place where leadership is born and launched.

But, at Bethel, there is something even more. This place is the core of a broader community of faith and learning that has purpose and influence that extends well beyond this hall, this campus, this town. Beyond the Flint Hills.

It was Woodrow Wilson who observed that “a college is not only a body of studies but a mode of association ... its courses are only its formal side, its contacts and contagions, its realities. It must become a community of scholars.”

I love to think that Wilson had Bethel College in mind when he wrote those words; that he saw what we are. That he understood that one of Bethel’s defining characteristics is its broader community of people. That he knew that the true power and legacy of Bethel College is not solely contained or revealed here on this campus; but, rather that its unique story is also found near the twin cities in Minnesota, at the foot of Yosemite in California’s central valley, within the golden plain of Inman and Buhler, along the Potomac in Washington, D.C., and among the cornstalks of Iowa and Nebraska.

You see, it is our people, wherever they are, that take us beyond the “realities” to which Wilson referred. It is our people who define us as scholars, as persons of faith, as doers, as leaders. It is our people and through their many contributions that Bethel’s greater purpose is achieved. If we just look we will see it in the lives and experiences of people we all know:

Bethel graduates, all. But more. These are people who have taken what they learned and experienced here and created a sphere of influence around them, continued their love of learning by teaching others, listening to others and allowing themselves to be influenced by others. They exemplify the values learned here. They are possessed of strength and gratitude. They are: Bethel’s broader community. They are: leaders in the Bethel tradition. They are: changing the world. They are: you.

About a year ago when my preparation for this role began, I encountered a short article written by Frances Hesselbein, the chair of the board of governors of the Drucker Foundation. Her writing inspired me. She quoted the words of George Bernard Shaw that have stayed with me. These are those words: “Life is no brief candle. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a short moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

Shaw’s image of this torch is precisely how I see all of us and our relationship to Bethel College and, in turn, Bethel’s role in the world. I carry this image with me each time I walk the steps of the Administration Building; each time I engage in discussion or laughter with our students, our faculty, staff; each time I travel about this state and the country and see the remarkable men and women connected to Bethel who are reaching beyond walls, changing lives in thousands of ways and building the community of faith and learning that I see.

And, it becomes clearer to me with each step, each visit, each handshake—what it is that we do that is so important and meaningful. We model faith-inspired values. We exemplify oneness—merging character with deeds. We listen. We learn. We lead and, in doing so, we form, together, that splendid torch that burns silently but so vigorously. And, as such, we are the arbiters of Bethel’s greater purpose, which is to change the way in which the world works.

The goal for us then, is this: We should recognize, yet again, the power and joy of our rich heritage. We should see this college as the birthplace of our distinctive leadership, the center of our commitment to lifelong learning, the heartbeat of our faith, a place to come home to. We should strive to become a community bound by ideals that transcend our backgrounds and ideologies; ideals that lift us above our self-interests and teach us what it means to be leaders of faith and learning. Pursuing this goal is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of learning over teaching, of doing over observing, of leading over following. Achieving this goal establishes us as torch bearers, as our founders envisioned. People from all over North America who carry the light.

It is easy to forget that you are part of a community. You don’t even notice it and then one day you look around and realize that you’re right in the middle of it—that it has defined you, that you are inextricably linked to it, that you are part of its future, that you are its legacy. It is a good feeling to be part of something so meaningful and so important and to realize that each time we celebrate—a commencement, a Fall Festival, the dedication of a building, or an inauguration—that we’re celebrating what we belong to and what we have joined.

This community is as broad as it is rich. It includes students, former students, parents, teachers, workers, the church, partners in education, friends. It challenges us and sustains us. And, it lasts. Not just for this day. Not just for four years. Not even for 30 years. But, for all time.

And so, on this day in this new time, I extend to you this simple invitation: Come with me, walk with me, rejoin with me that broader community of faith and learning—that splendid torch—whose soul is Bethel College.