The following is the prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Bishop Michael Curry H’24 at Kenyon’s 196th Commencement ceremony on May 18, 2024.
Thank you, Rachel. And thank you, family, friends, faculty, members, administrators, trustees, the entire Kenyon community. But especially thank you to the Class of 2024. Awesome.
I do want to thank President Kornfield for this, both the invitation and a chance to meet her. I like that chair. Nice. But thank you, to her and to all of you for allowing me to share just a few moments. I'm not going to take long, but just a few moments. Now, you know when a preacher says ‘I’m not going to take long,’ it's a metaphor, not a chronological statement. But I'm not going to be long, I promise.
I was probably 12 or 13, on the verge of adolescence, when I had a conversation, or better yet a monologue, with my father. He did the talking. And I don't remember what he wanted me to do. But whatever it was, I didn't say anything. Because in those days, you didn't say anything back to your parents. You just listened. But apparently my eyes and my countenance spoke loudly. And he blurted out, I mean, he just blurted out, he said, ‘You know, the Lord didn't put you here just to consume oxygen.’ And, you know, I have two grown daughters. They're grown now. And I can remember similar moments like that with them. And so I'm fully aware that that wasn't a considered philosophical statement about life. The Lord didn't put you here just to consume oxygen. But the more I thought about it — I'm 71 years old now and about to retire in another year — the more I thought about it, I realized that the old guy was on to something. The Lord didn't put me or you here, just to consume oxygen.
Now, I know that I'm in an academic institution, an institution of higher learning. So I think it's fairly fair that I'm on safe ground by saying we all do consume oxygen. Right? We inhale, even when you're waiting to exhale, you inhale oxygen. And then you exhale what? [Pause for audience response.] Oh, Madam President, I think there's little work to do about this. But okay. Yeah, you got it. You inhale oxygen, exhale carbon dioxide. These trees take in the what? [Pause for audience response.] And they released what? [Pause for audience response.] That's why the Amazon rainforest is called the lungs of planet Earth. They give us what we need, but we give them what they need. That is a world of interconnectedness. We are deeply related to the Earth that we live on and the world we are a part of. The Lord didn't put us here just to consume the oxygen however.
Now the word was, again, I don't think my father was writing a philosophical treatise, but the operative word I believe is the word just, because we are here in part to consume oxygen. We are here to be cared for. We are here to be loved. We are here all of us — every one of us — to be treated as a child of God of equal value, worth and dignity.
We are here to consume oxygen.
Yeah, we are. But we are here to do more than to receive. We're here to give. To give carbon dioxide. To be sure, the trees are all thanking you even as we speak.
But we're here to make a difference in this world. To leave a footprint. Leave a biological print, sociological. To leave it just a little bit better. You can't do everything, trust me. But we can do something. To leave something just a little bit better. We are here to make a difference.
Now, this isn't a sermon, it's not gonna be long. But if it was a sermon, I might say that Moses said it this way. ‘Human beings are not here just to eat bread by bread alone. But by everything that flows from the mouth of God.’ Again, this is not a sermon. But if it was, I would go to the Hebrew prophet Micah who said it this way, ‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?’ This is not a sermon, trust me. But if it was a sermon, Jesus of Nazareth said, ‘Is not life more than food?’ Of course, you need food. But is not life more than food, the body more than clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, the birds of the air. Are you not of more value than even those priceless creatures of God? Know that you've been put here to love the Lord your God and love your neighbor. And that means everybody else. There’s some Democrats here, I expect. It means you're supposed to love a Republican. And Republicans, I've got a feeling there’s some Republicans here as well. You're supposed to love some Democrats. What I'm saying to you now I've said on Capitol Hill to members of the Congress, you’ve got to love each other.
This is not a sermon. So let me contextualize it a little more. I did a fishing trip on the Kenyon College website. And I was fishing around to see what's the mission. What has this institution said about itself? And I found when I dug a little bit on the website, what was a mission statement. I don't know if it still is, but that's okay. History is important. It said, and I quote — I'm not making this up, this is what you said about yourself — you said at Kenyon, ‘We build strong foundations for lives of purpose and consequence.’ In other words, at Kenyon, y'all didn't come here just to consume oxygen. You came here to build and construct and to learn, and then to move out with lives of purpose, lives of consequence, lives that make a difference to you and to generations who will come after you.
In the 1980s and 90s, I served as the pastor of a church, at a historically African American church in Baltimore, Maryland, in the center of the city of Baltimore. And while there, one of the groups in the church often had an outing for seniors that was usually in the middle of the week. And so I decided to go with them. At that time, I wasn't one of them. I am now but I wasn't then. And so I decided to go with them. And they got to St. Michael's Maryland. And they had a crab feast. They just spent the day doing what old people do. I'm discovering what old people do. And while we were there, I was just kind of going from table to table visiting folk, and there was a table with a bunch of old guys, these like old Black men who were about the age of my father then. And I went over and sat down with them. And I didn't know exactly what they were talking about. But I discovered that they were all World War II and Korean War veterans. I discovered that these were some of the Black soldiers who served our country in segregated units.
I discovered that one was a Montford Point Marine Corps member, the first Black unit in the United States Marine Corps. He was just sitting in church all along and I didn't know this, I discovered that another one was the Tuskegee Airman. And while we're sitting there, they were regaling their past glory, exaggerating to be sure. But one of them said to the rest of them, and I guess to me, he was the Tuskegee Airman, he said, ‘I came out of college and I wanted to fly. Because even when I was a little kid, I always wanted to fly, fly planes.’
And he said, ‘I came out. And I was accepted into the Tuskegee Airmen.’ A unit of African American pilots, who eventually were allowed to fly when members of Congress finally realized that the lung capacity and the cognitive capacity of African Americans was the same as Euro Americans or Asian Americans. That was a debate. That actually was a debate. And actually — I'm off script for a second — but it was Eleanor Roosevelt who actually got in a plane with a Black pilot and let him fly her. And that was an example to the Congress of the United States and to the media of this country that God has made all people equal and has given us the same lung capacity and same brain capacity, regardless of our race, color, sexual orientation, or class.
Anyway, this guy went on and he said, ‘You know, when I came out of college, I just wanted to fly. That's why I wanted to be a Tuskegee Airman. I just wanted to fly. That's why I wanted to be a Tuskegee Airman.’ And he did. He said, ‘But as the war went on, I realized I wasn't flying for fun. I was flying for freedom, flying for freedom for people in Europe, flying for freedom for those who were put down and cast down by this war. I wasn’t flying for fun. I was flying for freedom.’
When I thought about them, I realized that Tom Brokaw, at just about this time, when we were having this conversation, had written a book called ‘The Greatest Generation.’ It was a book about that generation who emerged out of a Great Depression. And in a world where fascism, a world where tyranny, a world where injustice was seeking to reign, they went to fight that and to oppose it. And to create a world where every man, woman and child, no matter who they are, is free. They did that. They emerged out of a Great Depression. And emerged, to be honest, to help to build a new world.
Gunnar Myrdal, who is a Swedish economist and did a sociological study of a lot of this stuff, actually said there would have probably not been a civil rights movement had it not been for that generation that went overseas and said, ‘Wait a minute, hold on Jim Crow. We've seen something different. And we've come home to change home.’
They were the Greatest Generation. But I'm here to tell you that I think I'm seeing a Greatest Generation, again. Not forged in a Great Depression, but forged in a great pandemic. And I think I'm looking at them in the Class of 2024. Your formative years have been forged in the crucible of a worldwide pandemic that nobody in this generation, or here, has ever experienced. There have been pandemics, but we weren't there. You were forged in the midst of a period of racial reconciliation, for how we, as a nation, have fallen to less than the ideals – that we hold these truths to be self evident that all men, all women, all folk are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We saw that we have fallen short as a nation. You had to live in solitary, as the President was saying. You didn't come through a Great Depression, but you've come through a great pandemic. There's not a second world war, but there are wars and rumors of wars around the world. There are injustices and bitterness and hardship all over the place. And I want to suggest, forgive me, but I'm going to suggest that you may be the next Greatest Generation. You really may be that. Look, I'm old. I'm 71 years old. And when I say that in churches, I'm a member of the youth group a lot of times. But I'm here to tell you that like that old Tuskegee Airman — who left college and went to work for a world of freedom for everybody, justice for everybody, righteousness for everybody — it may be that that is your vocation, in your way, to leave this sacred place and to change that world around us for the good.
Well, let me bring this to a conclusion. You know what I was saying, when a preacher says ‘And in conclusion,’ that's a sign of an optimist, but it is. I am concluding. Going back to my father, I was getting ready to go off to college and we were in the car going somewhere. And just out of the blue, he just all of a sudden said, ‘You know, the Lord didn't put you here just to consume oxygen.’ And he had said that before. He said it when we were kids all growing up, I realized this was time for his speech. And then he said, ‘Just remember this when you go off to school, treat every girl the way you want somebody to treat your sister. Every boy the way you want somebody to treat your brother.’ I remember thinking, ‘Is that the end of your speech because I had plans for college, that you’re now interrupting. I had hopes and dreams for college, that you are now correcting.’ But I knew what he was saying.
Because he used to say, when we were kids, you know, treat everybody the way you want somebody treat your sister or your brother. Because that is your sister. That is your brother. Treat every woman like she's your mother, because she is. Every man like he's your father because he is. Treat every human being like they are members of your family. And here's the point I want to leave with you, Class of 2024. Then go out into this world and help to construct a world where everybody is God’s somebody, where everybody is treated with dignity, honor, respect. Where everybody's rights are protected under the law, where no child goes to bed hungry, ever again, where preventable diseases are finally prevented, where equal rights is not just an ideal, but a reality for all of God's children.
We need you. We need you. We need you to improve the human footprint on the face of the planet. So go. Not yet, but go. Go and make poverty history. Go and make a place for every human child of God. Go and create a world where everybody is treated as God's somebody. Do it however you do it. Do it. Because guess what? The Lord didn't put you here just to consume oxygen. God bless you. Love you, Class of 2024. God bless you, and you go and make a difference. God bless.