Donald W. Shriver, Jr. - "Renewing the Ruins" Baccalaureate Service for Bachelor's Degree (May 9, 1976)

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	(resounding processional organ music)	0:03
	♪ Beautiful Savior, ♪	11:57
	♪ Lord of the nations, ♪	12:05
	♪ Son of God and Son of Man ♪	12:12
	♪ Glory and honor, ♪	12:25
	♪ Praise, adoration, ♪	12:32
	♪ Now and forevermore be Thine ♪	12:38
	♪ Now and forevermore be Thine ♪	12:46
	(overlapping choral singing)
	(resounding organ music)	13:05
	(muffled congregation singing)	13:53
	(organ music)	16:07
	(muffled congregation singing)	16:10
-	In addition to those persons who are	17:18
	standing inside the chapel, there are	17:19
	a goodly number of persons still waiting to come in.	17:23
	We would like to ask you, if you will, to move as close	17:28
	as possible to each other toward the center aisle,	17:33
	so that persons may be seated on the outside aisles, please.	17:36
	(muffled speaking)	18:00
	Yeah, thank you.	18:01
	And now, my friends, in the presence of God	18:09
	and in fellowship with one another,	18:11
	let us confess our sins, let us pray.	18:13
	Oh God, in whose mystery we abide,	18:18
	and by whose mercy we are redeemed,	18:22
	we confess our sin against one another	18:25
	and against you, all our transgressions	18:27
	hidden and open, the evil done,	18:31
	and the goodness left undone.	18:34
	We have deceived ourselves about ourselves	18:37
	and worn masks and not trusted in love.	18:41
	We confess that we have been careful	18:45
	with things, careless with persons,	18:47
	adept in taking, awkward in giving,	18:51
	in love with our fears and in fear of our loves.	18:55
	Forgive us for the times of our anger	19:00
	and the occasions of our stupidity,	19:03
	for the times of our cowardice,	19:06
	and the places of our hesitation,	19:09
	for every time we did not love the goodness	19:12
	of persons nor praise your glory.	19:15
	Forgive us, lift us up and heal us	19:19
	this day through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	19:23
	Hope means to keep living amid desperation	19:47
	and to keep humming, even in the darkness.	19:53
	Hope is knowing that there is love.	19:57
	It is trust in tomorrow.	20:00
	It is falling asleep and waking again when the sun rises.	20:03
	In the midst of a storm, it is to know that there is light.	20:08
	My friends, God give you the hope	20:13
	and the assurance which your soul needs.	20:18
	Amen.	20:23
	(organ music)	20:29
	♪ Many waters cannot quench love ♪	20:36
	♪ Neither can the floods drown it ♪	20:44
	♪ Many waters cannot quench love ♪	20:52
	♪ Neither can the floods drown it ♪	20:59
	♪ Love is strong as death ♪	21:13
	♪ Love is strong as death ♪	21:20
	♪ Many waters cannot quench love ♪	21:28
	♪ Greater love hath no man than this ♪	21:39
	♪ That a man lay down his life ♪	21:51
	♪ For his friends ♪	22:13
	♪ Who his own self bare our sins ♪	22:24
	♪ In his own body on the tree, ♪	22:31
	♪ That we, being dead to sins, ♪	22:43
	♪ Should live unto righteousness ♪	22:52
	♪ That we, being dead to sins, ♪	23:02
	♪ Should live unto righteousness ♪	23:11
	♪ Should live unto righteousness ♪	23:17
	♪ That we, being dead to sin, ♪	23:22
	(overlapping choral singing)
	♪ Should live unto righteousness ♪	23:31
	♪ Should live unto righteousness ♪	23:35
	♪ Ye are washed ♪	23:41
	♪ Ye are sanctified ♪	23:44
	♪ Ye are justified ♪	23:48
	♪ In the name of the Lord Jesus ♪	23:52
	♪ Ye are a chosen generation ♪	23:59
	♪ A royal priesthood ♪	24:03
	♪ A holy nation ♪	24:06
	♪ That ye should show forth the praises of him ♪	24:15
	♪ Who hath called you out of darkness ♪	24:22
	♪ Out of darkness ♪	24:29
	♪ Into his marvelous light ♪	24:33
	(resounding organ music)	24:46
	♪ I beseech you, brethren, ♪	24:59
	♪ By the mercies of God ♪	25:07
	♪ That ye present your bodies, ♪	25:14
	♪ A living sacrifice ♪	25:24
	♪ Holy ♪	25:34
	♪ Holy ♪	25:39
	♪ Holy ♪	25:44
	♪ Acceptable unto God ♪	25:51
	♪ Which is your reasonable service ♪	26:11
	(overlapping choral singing)	26:15
	(gentle organ music)	26:33
-	The lesson is from Isaiah.	27:08
	And I will read from the New English Bible:	27:11
	The spirit of the Lord God is upon me	27:16
	because the Lord has anointed me.	27:18
	He has sent me to bring good news to the humble,	27:21
	to bind up the brokenhearted,	27:24
	to proclaim liberty to captives and release those in prison,	27:26
	to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor	27:31
	and a day of the vengeance of our God,	27:34
	to comfort all who mourn, to give them garlands	27:37
	instead of ashes, oil of gladness	27:40
	instead of mourners' tears, a garment	27:43
	of splendor for the heavy heart.	27:46
	They shall be called the trees of righteousness,	27:49
	planted by the Lord for his glory.	27:52
	Ancient ruins shall be rebuilt	27:55
	and sites long desolate restored.	27:58
	They shall repair the ruined cities	28:02
	and restore what has long lain desolate.	28:05
	Foreigners shall serve as shepherds	28:09
	of your flocks and aliens shall	28:10
	till your land and tend your vines,	28:12
	but you shall be called priests of the Lord	28:15
	and be named ministers of our God.	28:18
	You shall enjoy the wealth of other nations	28:22
	and be furnished with their riches.	28:24
	And so, because shame in double measure	28:27
	and jeers and insults have been my peoples' lot,	28:29
	they shall receive in their own land a double measure	28:33
	of wealth and everlasting joy shall be theirs,	28:36
	for I, the Lord, love justice and hate robbery	28:40
	and wrongdoing.	28:43
	I will grant them a sure reward	28:45
	and make an everlasting covenant with them.	28:47
	Their posterity will be renowned among the nations	28:51
	and their offspring among the peoples,	28:54
	and all who see them will acknowledge	28:56
	in them a race whom the Lord has blessed.	28:58
	Let me rejoice in the Lord with all my heart.	29:02
	For he has robed me in salvation as a garment	29:05
	and clothed me in integrity as a cloak,	29:09
	like a bridegroom with his priestly garland,	29:12
	or a bride decked in her jewels.	29:15
	For as the earth puts forth her blossom,	29:18
	or bushes in the garden burst into flower,	29:21
	so shall the Lord God make righteousness	29:24
	and praise blossom before all the nations.	29:27
	Thus ends the reading of the lesson.	29:31
	(organ music)	29:34
	♪ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, ♪	29:43
	♪ And to the Holy Ghost, ♪	29:49
	♪ As it was in the beginning, ♪	29:55
	♪ Is now, and ever shall be, ♪	30:00
	♪ World without end. ♪	30:05
	♪ Amen, amen. ♪	30:08
-	We are not alone.	30:18
	We live in God's world.	30:20
	We believe in God who has created	30:23
	and is creating, who has come into truly human Jesus	30:26
	to reconcile and make new, who works	30:31
	in us and others by the Spirit.	30:35
	We trust God who calls us to be the church,	30:38
	to celebrate life and its fullness, to love	30:43
	and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,	30:47
	to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,	30:51
	our judge and our hope.	30:55
	In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.	30:58
	We are not alone, thanks be to God.	31:04
	The Lord be with you.	31:09
-	And with your spirit.	31:11
	(congregation responding)
-	Let us pray.	31:12
	Oh Lord, our God, we rejoice in the goodness	31:24
	of this glad time together.	31:29
	How great is your love which gives us this day	31:32
	to enjoy, brings us together to call on you	31:36
	and to hear your comforting and renewing word.	31:39
	Who are we, Oh God, before you?	31:44
	How much conceit, hardness and falsehood	31:47
	there is in our thoughts, our words and our deeds,	31:50
	and then how much error and confusion,	31:54
	how much sorrow and need here and over all the earth.	31:58
	And, oh God, over all of our lives,	32:04
	your loving heart is open for us.	32:07
	And your hand remains strong to hold us,	32:10
	to lead us and to make us free.	32:14
	You do not forget any of us.	32:18
	You are near to each of us.	32:21
	You do call to us, everyone.	32:24
	You do love us, everyone.	32:28
	Oh God, we come together to praise you	32:33
	and to bless you, yes.	32:35
	And also to give honor and recognition	32:38
	to those who graduate from this university on this day.	32:40
	Bless, oh God, the life of each man and each woman	32:45
	who has come to this high and holy	32:49
	and hard-earned moment in life.	32:52
	Bless and fill with joy their friends,	32:56
	their loved ones and their families.	32:59
	As we pray for them, oh God, we pray also for ourselves.	33:03
	Grant them clear sight that they may recognize	33:08
	those things that matter and those that do not,	33:13
	wisdom that in all life's choices	33:16
	they may be enabled to choose right.	33:19
	Give them independence that popularity	33:23
	or unpopularity may not affect their decisions.	33:27
	Perseverance, that having begun a good thing,	33:31
	they may not lay it down until it is completed.	33:35
	Determination, Oh God, that nothing	33:39
	may deflect them from their chosen way.	33:42
	Grant them, oh God, kindness that no one	33:47
	in need may ever turn to them in vain,	33:53
	generosity, that they may be concerned, not with how little,	33:59
	but with how much they can give,	34:04
	loyalty and integrity that though all else fail,	34:07
	they may surely be true and honorable persons.	34:13
	May they, and we, so live in love of you	34:19
	and of our neighbor that we may know,	34:23
	even in this life, those things which are eternal	34:26
	and may at the end of all our days,	34:31
	oh God, hear your word, "well done, well done".	34:33
	Hear us, as we pray the prayer which Jesus taught	34:40
	his disciples saying: our father,	34:45
	who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	34:49
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	34:55
	Give us this day, our daily bread.	35:00
	Forgive us our trespasses,	35:03
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	35:05
	Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	35:09
	For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.	35:14
	Amen.	35:20
	At the baccalaureate service yesterday,	35:24
	it was our privilege to have one	35:29
	of our own family deliver the sermon,	35:30
	the Reverend Dr. Stuart Henry.	35:34
	On this occasion this morning,	35:38
	both at the earlier service and now,	35:40
	it is our distinct privilege and honor	35:43
	to have the Reverend Dr. Donald Shriver	35:48
	preach to us and deliver God's word to us.	35:51
	Don is one who, for many years, has been highly regarded	35:57
	and respected in North Carolina	36:01
	and the south and the southeast.	36:03
	And obviously his reputation was known	36:06
	throughout the country because in July of last year,	36:08
	he was appointed president of Union Theological Seminary	36:10
	in New York city, the office which he now holds.	36:14
	He and his wife, Peggy, are with us.	36:18
	We are indeed glad to have them in our company these days.	36:20
	Don, we welcome you to this service	36:24
	and we hear you as you bring God's word to us.	36:26
-	This is a sermon for conservatives,	36:39
	for anyone who has ever gone back	36:45
	to the old home place and breathed a sigh	36:46
	at its sad state of repair,	36:49
	or glimpsed a burial mound or an old temple,	36:54
	and wondered if any human construction can possibly endure.	36:56
	Or who spent so much as one moment	37:03
	of Duke University's 50th anniversary in 1974,	37:05
	imagining what the place might look like 500 years from now,	37:10
	overgrown with wild grass,	37:17
	turned into caves for rabbits and deer,	37:20
	a monument to a project once cherished	37:26
	by a group of human beings, but cherishable no more.	37:29
	It is a sermon for anyone on the brink	37:35
	of being a university graduate and capable	37:37
	of visions like Walker Percy's ironic,	37:40
	humorous, tragic, triumphant novel, "Love in The Ruins".	37:44
	The book looks back from the year 1990 or so	37:50
	with the diagnosis: "Don't tell me	37:54
	the USA went down the drain because of Leftism,	37:57
	Knotheadism, apostasy, pornography, et cetera, et cetera.	38:01
	All these things may have happened,	38:07
	but what finally tore it up was that things	38:08
	stopped working and nobody wanted to be a repairman."	38:12
	This is a sermon for would be repair persons.	38:22
	(congregation clapping)	38:28
	Now to take the ancient Hebrew case.	38:36
	Most remarkable was what they wanted to repair.	38:39
	You can't beat the second law of thermodynamics	38:44
	in this universe.	38:47
	Things just naturally run down hill,	38:49
	but human civilization, human culture itself	38:54
	is the improbable attempt to keep some of it	38:57
	from running down, to keep some of it,	39:00
	in fact, on top of the hill,	39:03
	a city set upon a hill, Jerusalem, the goal.	39:07
	Isaiah 61 is all lyrical over that.	39:13
	The vision is all repair oriented.	39:18
	"For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent."	39:23
	"For Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest."	39:27
	"If I forget the old Jerusalem,	39:31
	let my right hand lose her cunning."	39:34
	"How lovely is thy dwelling place?	39:39
	Oh Lord of hosts, for my soul,	39:41
	it longeth, yea, fainteth for the courts of the Lord".	39:44
	You see, international violence had obliterated the place,	39:51
	except for the vision of a place	39:57
	entertained by those captives in far off Babylon.	39:59
	They remembered the place, remembered it	40:06
	with the same passion that would stir	40:08
	their descendants 2,500 years later	40:11
	to return to the same city.	40:14
	It was then about 520 BC.	40:18
	A few burned out houses had been restored	40:22
	for a decade or so by returning captives.	40:24
	But the temple was not yet rebuilt.	40:29
	Without that temple, the heart	40:33
	of their peoplehood was absent.	40:34
	Even before rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem,	40:38
	they wanted to rebuild the temple.	40:40
	They had endured 60 to 70 years	40:44
	of having no institutions of their own.	40:46
	They were as institutionally naked as they had been	40:50
	the moment after the crossing of the Red Sea.	40:54
	They were as defenseless against chaos	40:58
	and mere individualism as those black slaves	41:00
	of the south, newly liberated by a war from slavery,	41:04
	but with hardly an institution to their name.	41:09
	A shattered family, and not yet even a church.	41:13
	Unlike them, with their history of slavery,	41:19
	most of us here have not suffered a loss	41:22
	of our social forms enough to be alarmed	41:25
	or to grieve over that loss.	41:28
	Rather the opposite.	41:31
	It's hard to pick up a good word these days	41:34
	among young Americans for institutions.	41:36
	During your high school years,	41:39
	there flitted across your mind, or some of you,	41:41
	the grim thought that the Vietnam War	41:44
	just might go on into the 1980s.	41:46
	The leaders of the communist institutions	41:50
	over there were ready for it to go that long.	41:52
	Some people in Washington, too.	41:57
	Politics was dirty, dirty business.	41:59
	And if that were not enough, no sooner	42:03
	than half the graduating class of Radcliffe	42:05
	enrolled in law school before a president	42:08
	and all his men, plus a few women, gave politics	42:10
	another black eye from which its Washington	42:14
	inhabitants have scarcely recovered.	42:19
	And then the university.	42:23
	What a colossal mistake the campus radicals	42:26
	made in the sixties to suppose that	42:28
	by changing the university, you could change all of society.	42:30
	Why, the university invites people into courses	42:35
	that prepare you for jobs that in one's	42:37
	junior year disappear from the economy.	42:40
	And 200 years after Adam Smith, exactly,	42:49
	the Ph.D.'s in the economics department	42:52
	are panting post-facto to explain how on earth	42:55
	inflation and unemployment can arrive together	43:00
	on one and the same track at the same time.	43:03
	Oh, what a long and boring list is here.	43:08
	Corporations that bribe their way perpetually into profits.	43:11
	Churches that love their fat budgets	43:15
	more than justice for oppressed women,	43:17
	oppressed Blacks and oppressed third worlders.	43:20
	Governments that protect their power	43:24
	by spying on their own citizens.	43:26
	Marriages that give way like sand castles	43:29
	to random waves of infatuation.	43:31
	And whole systems of thought that dissolve	43:36
	into the dew of individual opinion,	43:38
	so that one ironic result of a university education	43:41
	is the sad conclusion, "nothing is true	43:45
	or false, but thinking makes it so."	43:48
	No wonder that among young people across the land,	43:53
	the very word, institution, sounds with a thud.	43:56
	No wonder many of us attempted to crawl back	44:01
	into the thinness of our own skins to protect at least	44:04
	our selfhood from the grim invasion of social structures.	44:10
	The self may not be much, but maybe it's all we've got.	44:16
	Now, happily for those Hebrews, even in captivity,	44:23
	they believed they had more than that.	44:26
	They knew what their descendants	44:30
	in the Nazi concentration camps came to know again.	44:31
	If you want precisely to destroy	44:36
	another person's very selfhood,	44:39
	then systematically cut his or her ties to other persons.	44:43
	That's what an institution is,	44:48
	a systematic tie between persons.	44:50
	Individualize the whole of life and you can perfect tyranny.	44:53
	Make every person so exclusively devoted	44:58
	to his or her own survival that each	45:01
	can now be picked off at random	45:04
	by a power that is institutionalized.	45:07
	What makes the building of institutions conceivable,	45:12
	even counter institutions, against tyranny?	45:16
	The Jews in the concentration camp	45:20
	rediscovered an answer, the answer	45:23
	their ancestors had discovered in Babylon.	45:26
	The minimum requirement for an institution	45:30
	is a historical fact worth remembering.	45:33
	That was the genius of the Nazi program.	45:38
	Erase enough Jews from the earth, and you will	45:42
	erase from memory what gave rise to the Jews.	45:45
	Events like the Exodus and the Babylonian captivity	45:50
	and people like Moses and Isaiah, and Jesus.	45:54
	Having something so worth remembering,	46:02
	so worth conserving that you seek	46:06
	an earthen vessel to put it in.	46:09
	That's what moves people to institution building,	46:12
	some human contrivance strong enough	46:17
	to carry the treasure to another generation.	46:19
	A generation with no memories to hand on	46:24
	is an impoverished generation,	46:26
	no matter how much money it has in the bank.	46:28
	No will for institution building	46:32
	will come from such a generation.	46:34
	It literally has no project for the future.	46:36
	How can the future be interesting to human beings	46:40
	who have no past which interests them?	46:43
	That insight took a terrible form, you may remember,	46:48
	in the one concentration camp revolt,	46:51
	which the Jews under Hitler brought off stunningly well.	46:54
	The story is terrifying.	47:00
	The place was Treblinka in Eastern Poland.	47:04
	The Nazis planned to kill about a million Jews there	47:09
	with rope and gun and oven.	47:13
	They planned, and successfully, to use Jews	47:16
	themselves as workers in the slaughter factory.	47:19
	As an exquisite touch, they decided to sacrifice	47:23
	even those few German guards, finally,	47:27
	so that no one would so much as remember Treblinka.	47:30
	Until one day, until one day,	47:36
	a practical theologian among those	47:44
	death-manufacturing prisoners asked out loud,	47:46
	"if not a single Jew resist, who will	47:51
	ever want to be a Jew again?".	47:55
	That other generations should not have	48:01
	the opportunity to remember Moses,	48:03
	that the chapter of Jewish suffering called Treblinka	48:07
	should not even get remembered, an unthinkable thought.	48:10
	So on the slim basis of the contrary thought,	48:16
	600 staff members of the camp planned to revolt,	48:20
	and they carried it out at such fearful cost	48:27
	to themselves that only 40 survived to tell the tale.	48:28
	But that was the point, to get at least one person out	48:34
	to tell the tale and to make it a part of history.	48:39
	Are there stories worth telling the future	48:44
	at the cost of suffering and death in the present?	48:46
	Someone has said that the art of writing is	48:50
	a method whereby the dead can pass a message	48:53
	back through the door of their own graves.	48:56
	That is a rather comforting thought for those	49:00
	of us who like to write books.	49:01
	What a happy day this is that your graduation	49:06
	from this institution leaves you holding	49:09
	in your hands at least one such message.	49:12
	What a dreary day this is if all that	49:16
	book learning leaves you empty handed.	49:18
	I do not propose at this late date	49:24
	in your college education to fill your hands	49:26
	with my frail assurance that there is such a message.	49:29
	I believe there is.	49:33
	Those early Jews that tramped back	49:36
	to Jerusalem believed that there, there is.	49:37
	Christians in the catacombs believed	49:43
	that there is such a message.	49:45
	The Treblinka heroes believed it and so on,	49:47
	but that is not the same as your believing it.	49:50
	All I have to offer is a few signs,	49:54
	some doubled arrowed signs that beckon us	49:58
	like they did to Isaiah to repair some ruined cities	50:01
	and to restore what has long lain desolate.	50:05
	Perhaps you've met and read some of these signs	50:11
	in your own university education.	50:13
	Only you did not recognize that they were	50:16
	written by the hand of one whom the prophet	50:19
	called the spirit of the Lord God.	50:22
	That's all right, the spirit of God	50:25
	has written many signs in history	50:26
	and languages that few people understood.	50:28
	But wouldn't that be something?	50:31
	This old booming, buzzing confusion of life	50:33
	on this planet and in this galaxy	50:36
	haunted by the spirit of the God who made it all,	50:39
	so that as nonchalantly as Jesus of Nazareth	50:42
	walking into his hometown synagogue,	50:45
	one is now at liberty to pick up	50:48
	this old book and to say "today, this scripture	50:50
	has been fulfilled in your hearing",	50:54
	today, "release for the captive,	50:57
	liberty, for the oppressed, comfort for the mourning,	51:00
	righteousness and praise before all the nations".	51:05
	Today and tomorrow and tomorrow till	51:08
	the last syllable of recorded time.	51:10
	Now where on earth are such signs standing,	51:15
	just a few few of them, if you will?	51:18
	First, in certain human spirits of our time,	51:23
	whose life vocation is to love the real	51:25
	and to realize the love.	51:28
	Now that sounds like mushy sentimental language.	51:31
	I grant you.	51:33
	But any philosophy major here knows that	51:35
	the real and the lovable have been put	51:39
	into such airtight compartments by philosophy	51:41
	over the last three centuries that we are hurting	51:44
	personally and socially from that split	51:48
	in more ways than can be counted.	51:50
	"Eruditio et Religio", this university	51:54
	with its motto in Latin and all,	51:58
	encourages you to put learning together with religion.	52:00
	But I am sorry to say that Western culture	52:03
	has split the two apart progressively for 300 years.	52:05
	If it means anything to graduate	52:10
	from an institution with such a motto,	52:12
	it means that you will be profoundly disturbed	52:15
	about the pretense that it is possible,	52:18
	ultimately, to split facts and values.	52:20
	There are persons at work on the overcoming	52:26
	of that split, and I see them as a sign	52:28
	of the spirit at work in our time.	52:30
	One of them is Loren Eiseley, anthropologist,	52:33
	lover of the ancient ruins of humankind	52:37
	and East Africa, from the University of Pennsylvania,	52:39
	nearing the end of his career.	52:43
	But during the whole of his career,	52:45
	carrying on an unremitting war	52:47
	against the doctrinal divorce of love and reality.	52:49
	In one of his books, he recounts an ordinary experience,	52:55
	but gives it an extraordinary description,	52:58
	a description worth passing back	53:02
	through the door of his own grave.	53:04
	It is an experience of ruin repair.	53:07
	"It was an odd accident", he says,	53:11
	"as I walked, abstracted and alone, toward my office	53:14
	one late afternoon, I caught my toe in an ill placed drain.	53:17
	When I opened my eyes, I was lying	53:23
	face down on the sidewalk.	53:25
	My nose was smashed over on one side.	53:28
	Blood from a gash on my forehead was cascading over my face.	53:32
	Confusedly, painfully indifferent to running human feet	53:37
	and the anxious cries of witnesses around me,	53:41
	I lifted a wet hand out of this welter	53:44
	and murmured in compassionate concern,	53:47
	'Oh, don't go.	53:51
	I'm sorry what I've done for you.'	53:55
	The words were not addressed to the crowd around me.	54:00
	They were inside and spoken to no one,	54:03
	but a part of myself, I was quite sane.	54:05
	Only, it was an oddly detached sanity,	54:10
	for I was addressing blood cells, phagocytes,	54:12
	platelets, all the crawling living independent	54:17
	wonder that had been a part of me.	54:21
	And now, through my folly and lack of care,	54:24
	were dying like beached fish on a hot pavement.	54:27
	I was made of millions of those tiny creatures,	54:34
	their toil, their sacrifice, as they hurried	54:37
	to seal and repair the rent fabric	54:40
	of this vast being whom they had unknowingly,	54:43
	but in love, compounded.	54:46
	I, for the first time in my mortal existence,	54:49
	did not see these creatures as odd objects	54:51
	under the microscope.	54:54
	Weeks later, recovering, I paid a visit	54:56
	to the place of the accident.	54:58
	A faint discoloration still marked the sidewalk.	55:00
	I hovered over the spot, obscurely troubled.	55:04
	They were gone, utterly destroyed.	55:08
	Those tiny beings, but the entity of which	55:12
	they had made a portion still persisted.	55:15
	I shook my head, conscious of the brooding mystery	55:18
	that the poet Dante impelled into his great line,	55:21
	'the love that moves the sun and other stars'	55:25
	and must have moved, I thought, the dying Christ	55:29
	on Golgotha with a power that has reached	55:32
	across 2000 weary years."	55:36
	Now that takes a lot of scientific religious nerve.	55:41
	How dare he find traces of love	55:46
	in the very structure of his own body?	55:48
	What a pathetic fallacy is there.	55:51
	How dare any of us find any love	55:54
	whatsoever in the facts of this life,	55:56
	or the structures of anything,	56:01
	body physical, body politic, body of thought?	56:04
	And yet.	56:08
	And yet.	56:10
	If there is anything worth remembering,	56:12
	any message to pass on, it is	56:14
	the message about what is worthy.	56:17
	And which of us has stories to tell	56:21
	our own children except those things	56:23
	that meant the most to us and enable us	56:25
	to know that we mean something to this world?	56:27
	Compile your own memory of the mediation of your surmise	56:31
	that love haunts the very being of the world.	56:35
	We all need such memories.	56:37
	Perhaps the light that creases	56:40
	across the faces of some married partner	56:42
	in your life, your own parents,	56:45
	a light that has at least in it	56:49
	an overtone of a vow once made, "til death do us part".	56:51
	Or that third grade teacher who cherished	56:58
	the little learning in you in such a way	57:00
	that she cherished you yourself.	57:03
	Thus laid the foundation of your will	57:06
	to enter a university one day.	57:09
	Or that guy down the dormitory hall	57:13
	who understood only too well why people	57:15
	think about suicide and who talked with you	57:18
	til three in the morning about his reasons	57:22
	for turning aside from that idea.	57:24
	Or the time you visited a revival service	57:28
	in a Black church, and it was utterly clear	57:30
	that without the memory of Moses, Isaiah and Jesus,	57:34
	Black people might not have made it in this country.	57:38
	Scattered evidences, I grant you.	57:43
	No more scattered, perhaps, than many	57:46
	a scientific hypothesis builds upon.	57:48
	Is the universe friendly?	57:51
	The evidence is mixed.	57:53
	It takes faith to say, yes.	57:56
	I offer you no theoretical answer	57:57
	to why such evils haunt our world,	58:01
	why death comes in 6 million person gulps	58:03
	to Nazi Germany for Jews, why people die	58:07
	in earthquakes or why on the eve	58:10
	of this very event Reggie Howard should die.	58:13
	It would be a stupid faith that overlooked	58:21
	the evidence in contrary to its assertions,	58:23
	but it would be equally stupid not to give	58:26
	the other evidence some credence.	58:29
	For a start, Moses, Isaiah and Jesus will do.	58:31
	And also blood cells, phagocytes, platelets	58:35
	and the arms of people running to pick you up	58:42
	when you are brokenhearted and in need of repair.	58:44
	Another way to illustrate the evidence	58:49
	is to identify, again, its institutional location.	58:51
	Marriage, third grade teachers, dormitories and churches	58:55
	are superbly worthwhile institutions.	59:00
	This is the argument, mind you,	59:02
	if they let through to your and my life	59:04
	so much as a glint and a snatch	59:07
	of a faith, God loves me and you,	59:11
	and is at work in this world to enable us	59:14
	to love our neighbors as ourselves.	59:17
	But then there is the question about the woefully	59:20
	inadequate institutions, the cracks	59:22
	in our earthen vessels, which, if not repairable,	59:25
	may be signs of a need for some renewal.	59:28
	And one of the areas of contemporary life	59:33
	in which institutional renewal needs	59:35
	desperately to take place is in the impact	59:37
	of human institutions upon the non-human world.	59:40
	Rachel Carson began the institution on that	59:45
	analysis of that particular problem area,	59:47
	but she did not live long enough to see	59:50
	the beginning of a shift to compassion among us	59:53
	for the so-called natural world.	59:57
	She would rejoice, I'm sure, in the work	1:00:00
	of persons like Christopher Stone,	1:00:02
	a young law professor at the University of Southern	1:00:05
	California, who says that the only way	1:00:07
	to protect this garden planet from Homo sapiens	1:00:10
	is for him to use some of his sapiencia in love,	1:00:14
	rather than in destruction of the non-human world.	1:00:19
	Eruditio et Religio, mind you.	1:00:23
	It is, said Stone, to build more loving human institutions.	1:00:27
	"The value we place on gold - a yellow inanimate dirt -	1:00:32
	is not simply a function of supply and demand.	1:00:37
	Wilderness areas are scarce and pretty, too,	1:00:41
	but it is connected with the actions	1:00:44
	of legal systems of the world,	1:00:46
	which have institutionalized that value of gold."	1:00:49
	"I am proposing," he says, "that we do the same	1:00:53
	with eagles and wilderness areas as we do	1:00:55
	with copyrighted works, patented inventions and privacy".	1:00:58
	Give them legal rights.	1:01:04
	Now imagine that young law professor	1:01:06
	apparently believes he has been anointed	1:01:09
	to "bring good news" to the humble victims of pollution.	1:01:11
	Some strangely loving spirit has impelled him	1:01:16
	to "bind up the brokenhearted" among the dumb beast.	1:01:18
	And he is apparently possessed of the conviction	1:01:23
	that if we change our law codes,	1:01:26
	sites long desolate may get restored.	1:01:28
	And in demonstration of his philosophical religious	1:01:34
	break with the old fact-value dichotomy,	1:01:37
	he makes clear at the end of his book	1:01:40
	through a quotation from Carson McCuller's story,	1:01:43
	"A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud":	1:01:47
	an old, half-mad derelict corners	1:01:51
	a 12-year-old in a streetcar cafe.	1:01:54
	The old man asked whether the boy	1:01:58
	"knows how love should be begun".	1:02:00
	Sounds like the start of a dirty story, but it isn't.	1:02:05
	"The old man leaned closer and whispered,	1:02:12
	'a tree, a rock, a cloud.	1:02:15
	'At the time my science was begun,	1:02:21
	I meditated and I started very cautious.	1:02:23
	I would pick up something from the street	1:02:27
	and take it home with me.	1:02:29
	I bought a goldfish and I concentrated	1:02:32
	on the goldfish and I loved it.	1:02:34
	I graduated from one thing to another.	1:02:37
	Day by day, I was getting this technique.	1:02:39
	For six years now, I have gone around	1:02:42
	by myself and built up my science.	1:02:44
	And now I am a master.	1:02:47
	Son, I can love anything.	1:02:49
	No longer do I have to think about it, even.	1:02:52
	I see a street full of people and a beautiful	1:02:56
	light comes to me.	1:02:58
	I watch a bird in the sky, or I meet	1:03:00
	a traveler on the road.	1:03:02
	Everything, son, and anybody, all strangers and all love.	1:03:05
	Do you realize what a science like mine can mean?'"	1:03:10
	Probably not, but pure science, like pure religion,	1:03:15
	Richard Nieber used to say, is	1:03:20
	on the lookout for "widows and orphans",	1:03:22
	"abandoned and bereaved facts" in this world.	1:03:25
	Now, if you make a career out of that	1:03:30
	line of science, you will, as W.H. Auden suggested,	1:03:31
	"see rare bees, and have unique adventures"	1:03:35
	on the pilgrimage of this life.	1:03:39
	The thrust of history is the incarnation of love.	1:03:41
	If it has happened once and again in Moses	1:03:47
	and Isaiah and Jesus, it can happen once and again	1:03:50
	in you and in me and in the yous and mes	1:03:53
	coming after us and the spirit of the Lord	1:03:57
	is upon us to make it so.	1:04:00
	Amen and amen, but just a tactical postscript,	1:04:05
	a trivial postscript, perhaps, added from the humor	1:04:12
	of one of the funniest men alive in the United States,	1:04:15
	his name is Art Buchwald, was invited by the graduating	1:04:17
	class of Vassar to address it last June.	1:04:21
	People ask, he said, "what can we do to make things better?"	1:04:27
	"Well", he said, "try the simple things first	1:04:30
	and go on to the more complex."	1:04:32
	The people who constructed a government	1:04:35
	capable of changing presidents without a war	1:04:36
	were doing a very complicated institutional trick.	1:04:39
	But they built on simpler experiences up to the big issue.	1:04:43
	"So", said Buchwald, "here are some things	1:04:46
	you can do right after graduation.	1:04:48
	Throw a baseball to a little girl.	1:04:51
	Ask your teacher for his or her autograph.	1:04:55
	Ask your a mother or father for a dance.	1:04:59
	Throw a kiss to an old lady and take a walk	1:05:04
	in the woods with someone you love,	1:05:08
	then go on to something a little more complicated,"	1:05:12
	he suggested, "I believe that somewhere out there	1:05:15
	in the class of '75 is a scientist who will develop	1:05:18
	a flip top beer can that can't cut your finger.	1:05:21
	(audience laughing)	1:05:25
	And I know there's someone out there	1:05:27
	who will find a way of letting people	1:05:29
	go to sleep without taking Sominex.	1:05:31
	And I am certain that one of you	1:05:34
	will be able to find out how to have	1:05:36
	a happy marriage without taking Geritol."	1:05:38
	(audience laughing)	1:05:41
	Now it might be a while before you work up	1:05:47
	to some more momentous issues, before you find out	1:05:50
	the way to repair state government,	1:05:54
	as much as Terry Sanford repaired it,	1:05:57
	or repaired this nation as faithfully as did	1:06:01
	John Serica or find out how to raise a standard of justice	1:06:04
	for the nations as high as Martin Luther King raised it,	1:06:09
	or organize a system of compassion for the streets	1:06:13
	of Calcutta, as diligently as has Mother Teresa.	1:06:17
	But once you get going down that path,	1:06:24
	to which one holy spirit beckons you in love,	1:06:27
	you never can tell what will be at the end of it.	1:06:31
	Let us pray.	1:06:38
	Now Lord anoint us with thy spirit	1:06:47
	that our own broken hearts may be repaired	1:06:51
	and our broken systems that they	1:06:55
	may be renewed in the power of your spirit.	1:07:00
	And when rendered worthy of being passed on	1:07:04
	down the path of your history, will we pray	1:07:10
	in the spirit of the prophets and in the name of Jesus.	1:07:18
	Amen.	1:07:22
	(gentle organ music)	1:07:33
	♪ How lovely is thy dwelling-place ♪	1:07:41
	♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:07:50
	♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:07:57
	♪ Thy dwelling-place, O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:08:07
	♪ How lovely is thy dwelling-place ♪	1:08:26
	♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:08:39
	♪ How lovely is thy dwelling-place ♪	1:08:53
	♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:09:01
	♪ For my soul it longeth, yea, fainteth, ♪	1:09:13
	♪ It longeth, yea, fainteth, ♪	1:09:22
	♪ It longeth, yea, fainteth ♪	1:09:26
	(choral singing overlapping)
	♪ For the courts of the Lord ♪	1:09:36
	♪ My soul and body crieth out ♪	1:09:51
	♪ Before the living God ♪	1:10:00
	♪ My soul and body crieth out ♪	1:10:07
	♪ Before the living God ♪	1:10:16
	♪ How lovely is thy dwelling-place ♪	1:10:38
	♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:10:47
	♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:10:54
	♪ Thy dwelling-place, O Lord of Hosts ♪	1:11:04
	♪ Blessed are they ♪	1:11:25
	♪ For blessed are they that dwell ♪	1:11:34
	♪ That dwell within thy house ♪	1:11:45
	♪ They praise thy name evermore ♪	1:11:50
	♪ Praise thy name evermore ♪	1:11:55
	♪ Praise thy name evermore ♪	1:11:59
	♪ Praise thy name evermore ♪	1:12:04
	♪ Praise thy name evermore ♪	1:12:06
	♪ They praise thy name evermore ♪	1:12:15
	♪ They praise thy name evermore ♪	1:12:18
	♪ They praise thee ♪	1:12:22
	♪ They praise thee ♪	1:12:24
	♪ They praise thee ♪	1:12:27
	♪ They praise thee ♪	1:12:29
	♪ They praise thy name evermore ♪	1:12:34
	♪ How lovely ♪	1:12:49
	♪ How lovely ♪	1:12:53
	♪ How lovely ♪	1:12:58
	♪ How lovely ♪	1:13:02
	♪ How lovely ♪	1:13:07
	♪ How lovely is thy dwelling-place ♪	1:13:13
	(choral voices overlapping)	1:13:16
	(fading organ music)	1:13:39
-	As one act on the way toward restoring the ruins,	1:14:15
	let us join together in this responsive prayer	1:14:22
	of thanksgiving and commitment.	1:14:25
	Will you stand as we pray together?	1:14:28
	Oh God, we rejoice now that not only have we learned	1:14:40
	and worshiped together, we also bring before you	1:14:45
	the symbols and the reality of our lives.	1:14:49
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:14:53
	We give thanks for the universe	1:15:08
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:11
	for the earth,	1:15:12
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:14
	for communities and neighborhoods,	1:15:17
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:20
	for the revolutions which shake our world,	1:15:23
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:27
	for the power of our learning,	1:15:30
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:33
	for the perplexities which confront us,	1:15:35
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:38
	for our heritage,	1:15:41
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:43
	for the visions of this university's students,	1:15:46
	staff, and faculty.	1:15:49
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:52
	We are given the eyes of the spirit.	1:15:55
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:15:58
	The promise is to each of us, we may see,	1:16:02
	we may receive, we may love.	1:16:06
	(muffled prayers reciting)	1:16:10
	Amen and amen.	1:16:28
	(dramatic organ music)	1:16:30

	(spirited instrumental music)	0:03
-	Go now, dear friends,	1:22
	remembering who you have become in this place.	1:26
	Go remembering that you are forgiven.	1:32
	May you be eternally loved,	1:38
	thoughtfully enlightened, gratefully obedient,	1:42
	responding, and responsible.	1:49
	Wherever you are.	1:53
	Go to be the people of God	1:56
	and may the peace	2:01
	and joy of God, be ever with you.	2:03
	(slow choir music)	2:12
	(bell chimes)	3:22
	(spirited organ music)	3:35

Item Info

Title:

Donald W. Shriver, Jr. - "Renewing the Ruins" Baccalaureate Service for Bachelor's Degree (May 9, 1976)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4c53k265

Date:

May 9, 1976

Speaker:

Shriver, Donald W., Jr.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0835
ref6870_xxq
uachapelsermaud
duke:627985
dcrau002794
ark:/87924/r4c53k265
13f80aab-a6e9-4663-937d-bc42514eb687

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Donald W. Shriver, Jr. - "Renewing the Ruins" Baccalaureate Service for Bachelor's Degree (May 9, 1976)

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1. Donald W. Shriver, Jr. - "Renewing the Ruins" (May 9, 1976)

Duke University Archives

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Donald W. Shriver, Jr. - "Renewing the Ruins" Baccalaureate Service for Bachelor's Degree (May 9, 1976)

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