Dear
Friends,
On the “Kelly File” this week
they had an interview with the author of the “You’re Not Special” commencement
speech at Wellesley High School, MA, two years ago. In the light
of that fact, and considering that this message was aired so close to
Holy Week and Easter, I’ve decided to re-publish the following blog written the
summer following that speech. It’s the “You Are Special!” message that
especially youth need to hear today, and a message that is more and more being
blocked out by our contemporary secular society. Our culture and society are
more and more shutting down the music of the message of human dignity, and
locking the door that leads to the “Good News!” which follows:
“YOU ARE SPECIAL”
Please! No more
speeches that tell people – and especially young people – that “You are not
special!” Not only because the statement is not true, but also because it is
the last message our society needs to hear. All around us we continually see
the assault on the dignity of human life. The Aurora theater, the Sikh killings
in Wisconsin are only the latest episodes of humanity being treated as cheap
and readily disposable. The same unnerving phenomenon has been with us ever
since the advent of abortion. The trashing of human life made its ugly presence
dramatically felt on 9-11, in the Oklahoma bombing, and in the disgraceful
treatment of the poor and elderly in the aftermath of Katrina. Media, movies, and
violent video games encourage the assault on human dignity. Rape, torture, and
mass killings like those in the “Dark Night Rises” make for top box office
entertainment today. Is it any wonder that the Boston Herald headline yesterday
(Aug. 14th, 2012) reports on the fear which lurks on the streets of
our cities today?
So no more speeches
which tell people – and especially young people – that “You are not special!” I
don’t care how literary the speech may be, or how artfully written – and the
“Commencement” speech at Wellesley High last June was one such speech. Truly a
literary gem, a work of literary art worthy of being studied and emulated in a
course on writing. Yet its message is unfortunate, the last message people need
to hear whether in Aurora, Oak Creek Wisconsin, or anywhere in America for that
matter.
All the more so since
the message is not true. Biblical teaching makes that quite clear. Each and
every person has inestimable value as a child of God made in His image. (Gen.
1:26-27) How special each person is as His child, as flesh of His flesh, life
from His life, heart of His heart. Even further, the human soul made in His
image knows no limit. There is no limit to how high that soul can reach or how
far that soul can go with the help of our Father on a journey to excellence in
the service of Love.
But how would a public
high school in America today know any of this; or, for that matter, how would
our secular society, when they exclude from the public forum any word from God
– especially any word that addresses the issue of human dignity? The result? A
graduating class of American youth get to hear a three typed page message
hammering home the reasons why they are not special; and even more tragic, a
message like that all-pervasive in media and movies today – one that presents a
vision of life and a view of people totally divorced from the context of the
Gospel and God’s Word. Sad to say, though unfortunate and tragic, that
commencement speech and the media messages like it are an all too common “sign
of our times” – not to be surprised then when the news reports stories where
“life is not special”, where human life is trashed, cheapened, or in the case
of abortion and mass killings, readily disposable.
There are so many
better purposes that a graduation speech can and should serve rather than
subjecting and pummeling a graduating class of promising teens to three pages
of “put down” rhetoric. Why not instead make the case for why you are special
based on the core Gospel concept of Christian dignity – the infinite worth and
value of each and every human being made in God’s image? Go even further, and
cite how that worth was ratified and validated by the suffering and death of
Jesus, by the price He paid to bring humanity back home to the heart of their
Father.
You want to say
something worthwhile to a graduating class of high school seniors? Tell them
who they are in the eyes of God. Tell them that Jesus died with their names
upon His lips. Tell them that as a child of God made in His image their “…immortal
soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too
deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no
expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in the effort to
save a human soul…” in any and every sense that a human soul can be and needs
to be saved.
-
Doug Michaud
Published August 15,
2012
Doug’s Contact Info:
Web: trinitycorministries777.net; trinity-cor.blogspot.com/;
also, modedsys-nereg.com
