This is a day when we especially consider the achievements of the Class of 2000, when we congratulate them on their graduation, and wish them God-speed in their future endeavors. We must also advise them of what they are soon to meet in the world they are about to enter, and how they should take dominion in every sphere of life. Students often struggle to sum up what they have learned during their High School years, to know how to use that knowledge as the key to the future, to unlock their hopes and dreams. I would like to take as my text this afternoon the first text that I read each year to my con-campus Junior and Senior Philosophy students.
Today marks a new beginning in the lives of both students and parents.
Like travelers about to set foot for the first time on a strange shore, students turn their eyes to the horizon, expectantly straining to see just what is in store for them. Parents, having guided the ship of their lives across the oft-times stormy sea of adolescence, also seek to pierce the mists of uncertainty, less with expectation, more often with concern. Age brings experience, and with that experience comes a hard-earned knowledge of life s pitfalls and problems, as well as life s highlights and successes. Sad to say, but we live in a world in turmoil. Age old traditions of honesty, integrity, and hard work, have been replaced in the market place of ides by new attitudes, and indeed lifestyles, of falsehood, hypocrisy, greed, and laziness.