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History, Then

A little over thirty years ago, I wrote the following essay for my application to be the student speaker at my university's history department graduation:

What can history teach us? In this age of the future, what can the past possibly teach us about our present? Perhaps more than we think or care to know. Perhaps it can teach us about our very selves.

On the surface, this seems like a preposterous statement. After all, what could we possibly have in common with people who lived ten thousand, one thousand, or even one hundred years ago? Other than the fact that we are all just that, people. When you strip away all the social and cultural forces, we are all just human beings, struggling to go through life the best way that we can.

Last semester, I did my thesis on a 12th century theologian named Peter Abelard. If any of you have ever heard of him at all, it's probably in the context of the love affair of Abelard and Heloise. To be honest, I hadn't really heard of him before last semester. But as I studied him, I quickly realized that I had more in common with this 12th century theologian than I would ever have dreamed.

I saw so much of myself in his life. I understood his struggling over his relationship with Heloise and his anxiety about how that impacted his religious life and spirituality. I had been there in my own struggles between a calling to the priesthood and being in love with someone special. I knew how confusing and complex it must have been.

It was the same sort of feeling that I had when I had studied Augustine the previous semester and his similar quandary over sexuality and spirituality. I knew how these two men felt. They were much more than just figures from the past, they were friends. And I knew that while I didn't agree with the conclusions they drew from their struggling, or how they acted, I could never pass judgement on what they did or the consequences of it all, as much as I might want to. I could never condemn them, because I understood them, and I loved them.

And when I realized this, I realized that I could never look at anyone in the same way again. If I could see myself in these two men dead for centuries, why not in the people around me, why not in any of you? The answer that I came up with was that I could.

Maybe this is what history has to teach us, that despite all our differences, we really do have a lot in common and can understand one another. That in many ways, we are one another, because we all share in the struggle of life.

This can be a scary vision. It challenges all our notions of absolutes, of identity. It forces us to look at how we define our communities, how we define ourselves. It makes us abandon our view of people as others. It takes away the certainty of our beliefs. It challenges the very fabric of reality as we have constructed it.

On the other hand, it can open up a view of each person as wonderful and special. We can drink in all the joy and sadness, pleasure and pain, triumph and tragedy of life, and know that all of it is a precious gift. When we begin to realize how much alike we are, we begin to see how inter-connected life is, how magical it is. We become aware that all of life, all of history, is a celebration.

This is what history, what all of you, have taught me. I may walk out of here not knowing a whole lot about medieval Europe, or a whole lot about anything, but I have learned this: LIFE IS GOOD, and if I died at this very moment, I would be content to have been alive. Thank you for this gift.

Time and language might separate the words above from last week’s haiku, but both preach on the same truth. And though the powers that be did select someone else's speech for the actual ceremony, I am proud to be able to say that I continue to stand by the lessons I learned during those halcyon college days.