Graduation 2011

Baccalaureate Speaker
Bob Schantz
High School Director

As I reflect on this past school year, I am struck with how many members of this year’s senior class led service projects, participated in service projects, gave senior chapels about serving others, and shared their empathy for those that they helped to serve. We had the various Houses helping out by cleaning the River Greenway and Science Central, or helping younger students at elementary schools in Fort Wayne. Students went to Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Mexico to build homes and provide fresh water and better living environments. As a high school, we set a record for food donations to Harvest Food bank, and continued to help children in hospitals through generous contributions to Kate’s Kart. We had a very successful blood drive that was primarily senior led. We saw students step up to provide aid to Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. The list goes on. I run the very real risk of leaving some important project unnamed, but in fact the list of projects is too long to present in the detail it deserves. It is not an exaggeration to say that to a large degree this class has left a mark on Canterbury for the way in which it has demonstrated a heart to serve others. I want to congratulate the Class of 2011 on their leadership in the area of service and on the positive impact that they have had in the community and in the world. It is my sincere hope that the acts of service that have so distinguished this class are the beginning to even greater efforts to change the world for the better, one act of service at a time. I feel confident that with the leadership and determination to serve that this year’s senior class has demonstrated, the Class of 2011 will carry out future projects that will continue to make us proud.

In view of the heart for service that you have demonstrated, I would like to leave the members of the Class of 2011 with three thoughts.

First, tap into the deep well of gratitude.

I believe that in demonstrating a desire to serve, you have shown a motivation that speaks to the best of human kind. You have not gone through trash dumps in Haiti because it was a requirement, or because it would make you look good in the eyes of others. You have served because you have come to learn the true value of serving. In a long commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Martin Luther wrote that living out the fruits of the spirit such as kindness and generosity is not something that we should do because we believe it will make us holy, but rather it is something that we do because we are grateful for what we have been given. Luther wasn’t thinking of material things, but instead talks about God’s love, a love that is freely given to us. Your parents have given you love and support, friends have been at your side, and from this base of support comes a spirit of gratitude that serves as a power source for service. Go forward in love and service because you have been deeply loved. Tap into the deep well of gratitude.

Secondly, don’t neglect serving your neighbor.

It is easy to think that the family down the block has everything going for it. They may not be short of food or clothing or fresh water. However, they could have a large, empty void in their lives. They could be suffering emotionally or spiritually. Perhaps what they need is simply someone to talk to, someone to take the time to offer a friendly hello. Maybe they just need someone to take a genuine interest in them, to make them feel confident that someone else values them and cares for them. The command to love our neighbors as ourselves is such an interesting spiritual mandate. How do we love ourselves? I suppose that most of us put our own interests first, and the command suggests that we should put the interests of others in this same high category. This means, of course, that we can’t look at those we serve as somehow lesser beings. We have to treat them with respect and dignity. Don’t neglect getting to know your neighbor, because you have to know your neighbor’s needs to serve them. And treat your neighbors with respect and dignity.

Third, don’t surrender to despair. Hold tightly to reasons to be hopeful, for there are good reasons.

When one considers the gravity of some of the problems facing the world, it is sometimes tempting to think that one person or one country cannot possibly make a difference. It may even be that some of what you see causes you to feel cynical about the possibilities for real change. After all, on the nightly news we see humanitarian efforts thwarted by strong-armed dictators. We have seen the ideals of equity and social justice seemingly overpowered by greed and self-interest. You have heard people ask: What will one more meal do for the starving millions? Perhaps the really big changes seem too great to accomplish. “Hunger and starvation stalk our world. Famine and disease are alive and well on Planet Earth. Thirty thousand children die every day of hunger and preventable diseases. Thirteen million people die every year from infectious and parasitic diseases that we know how to prevent” points out author Ronald Sider. (Rich Christians in a Hungry World). But even when we face these dark statistics, there is a basis for hope. Oxford economist Donald Hay has pointed out that a mere 2% of the world’s grain harvest would be enough, if shared, to erase the problem of hunger and malnutrition around the world. In 1996, the World Health Organization reported that an annual increase in preventative care of 75 cents per person in the developing world could save 5 million lives every year. My point is that in spite of some of the harsh realities, there are still reasons to be hopeful. Let me tell you briefly the story Jessica Jackley – founder of Kiva, the micro-financing website that allows donors to make loans to start-up businesses around the globe, from palm-oil producers in Ghana to window manufacturers in Tajikistan. Kiva uses a peer-to-peer model in which lenders sort through profiles of potential borrowers -- be they a farmer in Cambodia, a pharmacist in Sierra Leone, or a shopkeeper in Mongolia -- and make loans to those they find most appealing. The minimum loan is $25, and the interest rate is 0%. The repayment rate for loans is more than 98%, Jackley says, and since the group was founded almost 700,000 people have pledged $128 million in loans to more than 325,000 people. What I haven’t told you is that Jackey decided to pursue the idea for Kiva after hearing Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, an economist from Bangladesh, give a talk about microcredit loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Jackley was working at Stanford Univesity at the time and attended lectures in her off hours.

My point is that even though there are harsh realities, there are very compelling reasons to use your education, your intelligence, your imagination and your hearts to work toward creative solutions to some of the major problems that cause us anguish and threaten peace. As one wise statesman put it, the best path to peace is to invest in the prosperity and welfare of others. The key is to not surrender to despair but rather to cling to hope in order to persevere.

In his book Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, Frederick Buechner says, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet." My wish to all of you is that you will find deep gladness by seeking to serve people’s true needs, whatever they may be.

Graduation Speech
Jonathan Hancock, Headmaster

Good evening to you all, families and friends, faculty and students, and as always most importantly the graduating class, the Class of 2011, welcome to our Commencement Exercises on another lovely evening in the beautiful setting that we are so fortunate to call our school’s home. I hope very much, seniors, that some snapshot from this evening’s celebrations, a word or a mental picture from Baccalaureate, a memory or an image from our time outside now will become portable enough to remain with you for many years, and perhaps that it might capture a fragment of what this school has meant to you over the years, a tiny detail of what we hope we have offered you.

With that said, and recognizing both that this might not sound like the sort of thing one says at graduation and that my family might disagree with me, I think we have too many books at our house. This isn’t really a matter of space, although we do have bookshelves in almost all our rooms, and even some hallways, and some of the books are double-parked, and there is even a sort of splinter group that has made its way to our house in Wisconsin and established its own hierarchy there. Rather, for me it’s the fact that there are so many wonderful treasures there, so many old favorites, so many good friends, so many new acquaintances, and I have so little time to spend with them and that’s not the way it should be with good friends. I read last year of a writer and university professor in Chicago who decided to reduce his massive personal library to four hundred books, and while he was full of misgivings when he made the decision he found both the selection process and the compulsion to re-read before he determined a book’s fate really very uplifting. I am not sure I could be convincing enough to get away with that in our house, so for now I am resigned to a mental culling which reminds me of the good, the better, the best, and the best of the best as I look over the titles and covers and enjoy fine memories.

Of course, we have lots of books that English teachers might have collected, since that’s what I once did, and some of you may have written a paper or two for someone else who lives back there. There are my old classics texts for high school and college days that I once sadly knew far better than I now do. And it was amongst them that I spotted an old favorite that I spent quite a bit of time with in 1969 and 1970. It wasn’t one of the tattered volumes of the Iliad or the Odyssey, it wasn’t a tragedy of Sophocles, nor the Aeneid, nor the odes of Horace or the poems of Catullus. It was a wonderful verse translation of four extended poems by the Roman poet Virgil called the Georgics. The title is drawn from the Greek word for things that have to do with farm life, and despite the fact that there were some quite good literary and political reasons why the poet wrote over two thousand lines on practical farm tips, it really is on the surface a rather strange topic, both for then and for now, this evening. All this time we have spent on the depths and intricacies and virtues of a liberal arts education and as parting advice I am going to tell you about being farmers?

Virgil’s theme, though, was quite comprehensive and I am wondering whether both then and now there might not be merit in the most famous writer of the day sounding a voice of peace in a time of war. I am wondering also whether there might not be value in his reminder of traditions and traditional virtues. And I am wondering whether the poet’s simple statement “There are things you must know before you begin” might serve as the preface to every appropriate piece of helpful advice as you seniors are beginning, commencing a new journey today.

The poet goes on to say “If you observe the signs, tomorrow will never cheat you,” and while assuredly he goes on to speak of winds and weather, crop rotation and fertilization, reading the soil and animal husbandry, he subtly weaves in far deeper and more lasting lessons. Several of these are contained in a remarkable passage that begins: “I’ll tell of a tiny/Republic that makes a show well worth your admiration/Great-hearted leaders, a whole nation whose work is planned/Their morals, groups, defenses – I’ll tell you all.”

The passage that follows offers practical advice on the subject of bee-keeping, but I found as I reread it a few weeks ago some themes in that “tiny republic” that I might suggest are going to stand far larger in your lives ahead than they may even have done in all the good things you have accomplished to date.

I would mention just four: first, a sense of the importance of community; second, the need to support individual and communal health; third, the many layers and facets of responsibility; and fourth, the value of labor.

So a few thoughts in that order. While we hope you have felt that this school has offered you a sense of community during your time here, and maybe some lessons about community, I believe many, perhaps all of you have the skills and the aptitudes to be true leaders in the communities in which you will find yourselves in the future. And communities have the power to sustain individuals, to create powerful synergies, and ultimately to shape the context of our lives. So serve your communities well, and commit yourselves to making them better places.

Second, and closely allied to the first, make community health and your own health a priority. I am not suggesting an obsessive preoccupation or hypochondria, but I am recommending exercise and sleep and care about what you consume. Just take care of yourselves, take care of the health of your community. It is worth the time and effort.

Third, while we have given you a taste of some responsibilities here, and many of you have taken on responsibilities outside school, there has always been a sort of safety net however apparent or disguised in place. You will have responsibilities in abundance as you move through college, and on into jobs and careers and families. Be prepared for them, don’t shrink from them or abdicate them. Recognize that commitments bring responsibilities, and responsibilities bring commitments. This may sound commonplace, but it is too often forgotten, and I want very much that your lives will be examples of responsibilities recognized and accepted.

And, finally, to move yourself, yourselves from good enough to your best, the best, will require a commitment to work, for there will always be work to be done. From the Georgics, “Labor and necessity’s hand will master anything.” Again I am not advocating compulsiveness, but rather a willingness and a frame of mind to be industrious, to be constructive, to make the effort when you could sit idly by. And why are these things important? Because, as Virgil counseled for the hive, to bring up the young bees is the hope of their people.

So it is then that we place our hopes in you, our hopes for the future of families and communities, of sound principles and good judgments, of peace and respect for the dignity of all people. We may find these lessons in books, even in a dusty tome in a jumbled library, but it is far more important that we find them lived out in the lives of people of character and ability, such as we believe, seniors, that you are and that you will continue to be. You have done well here at school, and it is our hope, our dream and our belief that you will do well and you will do good as you move on to new adventures. We will be thinking of you; please do think also of us, just a little. And maybe keep those old school books around just a little longer. We would like that. Thank you.

Graduation Speaker

Dr. Susan Vear '98

It was a busy Saturday afternoon at the hospital. I should have been sitting at a computer, writing notes on our four patients in the Intensive Care Unit or checking labs. Instead, I found myself crouched behind a door with a needle-less, water-filled syringe in hand. I was peering around the corner when I felt a cold, thin stream of water hit my back, followed closely by giggling and the sound of retreating footsteps. I managed to catch up with my favorite patient at the door of her room, where I gave her a retaliatory squirt then handed my syringe back to her, re-entering the world of adulthood and being a doctor. Six months later, I cried with her parents in the ICU when at 4 a.m., they decided to stop life support.

I do not need to tell you all how fragile or precious life is – the Canterbury community had a harsh reminder of that lesson this spring, when we lost Carter. What I can share with you, though, is the lessons I have learned from my patients – not lessons about death, but rather about life.

The first of these lessons is one I learned when my favorite patient first held out that needleless syringe to me: don’t take yourself so seriously. There are certainly times for decorum and maturity – but it’s not every moment of every day. When you have been studying for your organic chemistry final for 12 hours straight and your roommate asks you to go with her and a bunch of friends to play ultimate Frisbee on the lawn – do it! You are all about to be Canterbury graduates, so I am making the assumption that you already know how to “work hard.” That doesn’t have to stop in college, but don’t forget to “play hard” as well. If you don’t believe me, then take your cue from Mr. Schantz, who once pulled 4 recent Canterbury graduates out of a very educational trip to a World War II museum in London with Dr. Wehrli, just so that they could see Abbey Road Studios and eat at Hard Rock Café. Our lives need balance. I can tell you that after spending 15 minutes shooting water at my patient in the halls of the hospital, the rest of the day seemed far less hurried and stressful, and was actually more productive. Take a break. Have some fun.

The next lesson: keep your eyes open. While most people use this phrase in reference to seizing opportunities to succeed – and that, too, is good advice – I’m referring to seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. I once spent the entire 20 minute drive into work grumbling about yet another snowfall, questioning God about whether I did or did not live in the south nowis in the south. Later that afternoon, some of my patients who were stuck in their rooms 24-7 were able to build a snowman, thanks to their brilliant nurses who brought the snow inside to them in plastic tubs. It was the closest that some of them had been to being outside in months. At that moment, I saw the snow a bit differently– it was not there to make my life more difficult, but to make my patients’ lives more full. So an ordinary inconvenience to me was an extraordinary afternoon of joy for my patients, all because of a nurse’s ability to keep her eyes open.

And the last lesson is maybe the hardest one: you are going to make mistakes. Not one mistake. Not a few mistakes. A whole mess of mistakes. This was an especially humbling lesson for me to learn when the mistakes I was making happened to be in the act of caring for sick children. Not that I hadn’t made mistakes before becoming a doctor – I can assure you, I made many. But having to tell a parent that you did something – or neglected to do something – that in some way affects their child, even if the child is not harmed in any way – makes you look at yourself in a slightly different light. You learn to take responsibility for your actions and admit your failures in a whole new way. It is hard. But there is a positive side – when I come to parents and share with them my mistake, the majority of them extend to me something extraordinarily precious: grace. These people, whose children are sick, who have every right to be upset and yell and tell me I’m an idiot, instead accept my apology and continue to trust me.

And that is the real lesson: to be graceful toward one another. When someone around me makes a mistake – be it the person ringing up my groceries or the driver in the car in front of me or my own family member – it is so easy to get upset, to yell, to hold a grudge. But the yelling is made a little harder when I think of the people who have extended grace to me when I was on the other side of the situation. When I remember that I, too, make mistakes, and that others have not held a grudge when they so easily could have it reminds me of the importance of this last lesson: to be graceful. Because it is the grace extended to me from others that has made each mistake a lesson instead of a catastrophe, that has given me the strength to continue to care for sick children, and that has allowed me to forgive myself in situations that feel unforgivable.

Life is not always fair or easy, and the path you should take is not always clearly marked. But it is, if you are willing to let it be an adventure. As you graduate today, you are beginning the next part of that adventure. Things will be new and exciting and even a little bit scary. So try not to take yourself too seriously, keep your eyes open for the extraordinary in the ordinary, and above all, be graceful – toward others, but also toward yourself. And when an 8 year old hands you a syringe full of water and challenges you to a game of Assassins – take it. I promise that your day will be better for it.

Graduation Speaker

P.J. Sauerteig '11

 A vivid memory I have of eighth grade was the night I had to read the picture book "Hitler Youth" in one night. I had procrastinated on a WWII reading assignment, and as I sat down to trudge through, in one night, the shortest book Mrs. Fallon could find me, I got a call that Katy Richardson, an old friend, was coming back from Kansas for the night. Instead of reading "Hitler Youth," I went to dinner and a movie with a bunch of my best friends and Katy. I got home late that night, and never even came close to finishing the book. I was exhausted, my book report the next day was absolutely terrible, but I’ve never regretted my choice.

And as I think back to that night, I realize that the seed of this graduation speech was planted in me. Today, I will speak about the one great flaw in the Canterbury education, or really in any college preparatory school like ours. Before I begin, however, I’d like to clarify that I love Canterbury more than any other institution in the world; it has given me so much, and the school community has wrapped itself around my very core. I will always be grateful to Mrs. Lynch’s reading lessons, Mrs. Tunis’ math class, Mr. King’s lectures on drosophila. Mr. Walda’s laugh, which stings the soul with a sort of terrifying pleasure. The genius of Mr. Colegrove, the fact that no one has any idea what Mr. Ruiz does at our school. The fact that European Handball is part of the middle school curriculum, and how we still wonder why we’re seen as a bunch of preppy snobs. The fact that every time Mr. Hancock smiles at you, you sort of feel like God Himself has reached out to caress your cheek. I love it all.

But, as I said, there is one aspect of the Canterbury psyche instilled in us that I find very misguided. From the very beginning of the Canterbury education, we are taught to think only of the future. In fact, I remember in lower school, Lauren Dickerhoof already knew that she was going to be a ballerina when she grew up. Danny and Nick were going to be surgeons and own a professional baseball team together. David Hurley was going to be Amish. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think dreams and hopes are bad to have, but that’s all we seem to think about at Canterbury. In middle school, we think about what advisor we want next year, and about how fun high school will be. From the very beginning of freshman year, we craft our schedules specifically for what APs and math courses we’ll be taking junior and senior year. In our college preparatory atmosphere with things like senior college apparel day, there is always a dominating presence of what lies beyond, what our futures hold. Take for example, Allie Bowers’ Facebook album titled, “Junior Year – only one more year to go...smooches smiley face heart asterix heart asterix winky face.”

We have classes like College Bound, which help to gear our minds toward where we’ll end up years from now. We start visiting universities our junior, even sophomore year. We obsess about the future. Our internships make us think about far-off careers and jobs, and even before we graduate from high school we start convincing ourselves of what we want to do with our lives. I guarantee that there are freshmen sitting in the audience who already know what they want to do for their independent projects. Many of you already know where you want to study abroad in college. As a Christmas gift this year, Jeffers Nguyen received an MCats study guide from his aunt – I really wish that was a joke. And for us at Canterbury, this sort of thing is totally normal – we don’t even think twice about it. That’s just how we’re molded to live. Well I’m up here today to tell you that I find that that’s a little bit of a shame. True, we are a college preparatory school, and there’s no harm done in planning, but in focusing only on what lies ahead, many of us completely lose sight of moments like these – the present, the right now. The beauty, the happiness, the freedom, the opportunities.

We’re still kids. We’ve only gotten through a mere fraction of our lives. We shouldn’t grow up too fast, because when we do, we neglect to appreciate the friends we have, the weekends at the lake, the stupid laughs in the cafeteria, going sledding, playing basketball in the gym. And what is worst of all is that the times we are neglecting are the best times of our lives – you’re only young once. Not many people realize this, but at our age we have what everybody wants. We are free, we are bright, and above all else, we are young. Why do you think billions of dollars a year are spent in the cosmetics industry? People want to be have a youthful glow again; they want to beat back wrinkles and imperfections so that they can look in the mirror and remember a time when they, too, were free and beautiful. Why do you think that grown men play video games, and go to Las Vegas? They want to forget that they’re shackled by full-time jobs; they want to forget about the taxes they have to pay, and jury duty, and their car payments. They want to remember and relive times long past. It’s why we have high school reunions; it’s why we have yearbooks; people yearn for exactly what we have and where we are because they can’t go back to the cafeteria, and they have no time for sledding. So go ahead; think about law school, never leave the library, and obsess over college visits. I won’t, though, because while we are still young, it is nothing short of a crime to waste our freedom and our vitality.

I’m simply reminding you that, in a way, we are still kids. Put aside thoughts of medical school and take a week off your college confidential online account. Don’t try to grow up too fast. Don’t think about your independent project for a few days. Play outside. Go on a road trip to see your favorite band, even if it’s 500 miles away. Kiss somebody. Break a bone. Learn to play guitar. Get ejected from your sister’s middle school volleyball game for verbally abusing the other team. Start a Frisbee golf team. Do what nourishes your soul. Do what gives you goose bumps. Tell your friends you love them. Spend an entire day doing absolutely nothing. Spend an entire week doing absolutely nothing. Ride your bike to go get ice cream. Get arrested for stealing a Christmas tree! That’s actually what my uncles did when they were our age, and only one of them is currently unemployed.

The more you think about it, the more terrifying it is that in just a blink of an eye, you’ll be driving to work, paying bills, and flipping through old pictures. You’ll be paying home insurance and you’ll become obsolete and faded. There’s plenty of time for AP’s, and you’ll have plenty of 3 a.m. nights studying later in life. I just want you think about the present– appreciate your vitality and your beauty and your youth. The future will come regardless. The apostle Matthew reminds us “therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I know normal graduation speakers are supposed to tell you to go out and embrace your future; but I won’t. There’s plenty of time for that later. But for now, smile, count your blessings, and live free; live as the children that you still are. None of us can know what the future holds anyway. Feel your arms and legs – there are no wrinkles. Smell this beautiful summer day, and promise yourself that you won’t waste your youth. Growing up isn’t as fun as it sounds. You will always have your respective “Hitler Youth” books in life, and you will have to read them and report on them. You have the rest of your lives to bury yourselves in them and study them. But remember that Katy Richardson only comes around every once in a while. There is no fountain of youth – to each only a drop is given. Will you taste it, or will you let it evaporate? To quote e.e. cummings, “you shall above all things be glad and young. For if you’re young, whatever life you wear, it will become you; and if you are glad whatever’s living will yourself become.”

To the class of 2011, I congratulate you, and I love you. To all other students, I encourage you, and I wish you the best of luck. God bless you all