I like gadgets, but I love tricky gadgets. I should start calling my cell phone “Merlin” because it is magical. It does just about everything. I am intrigued by the “lens” tool. You take a picture of a flower you’ve never seen before and instantly learn what the flower is called, where it grows, etc. Amazing.
The photo erase tool is also as amazing, but in a different way. I took the top picture of a woman who was setting up for a celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of LaVang at the Carmelite Shrine where I work. I then used the magic eraser tool available on my phone. The woman in the orange dress is…gone.
The revised picture is real…isn’t it? If I trash the other photo with the woman in it, the real photo (a truthful photo), all that will remain is the photo without the woman.
We can debate the use of such a tool until the proverbial cows come home, but that’s not what I’m really talking about. I’m talking about how we can magically erase things from our memory to suit other purposes. Instead of dealing with things as they really were/are, we can alter the reality to better suit our (agenda-driven) narrative.
People on the left and far left do it. People on the right and far right do it. And they often do it to change the narrative that works for them as they tell/sell their story to “their” followers.
Sometimes that which gets erased is not always the same “sticking point” that gets erased in another “version” of the story.
Our ability to render different realities is not something new. You never needed an app to change a part or parts of the “truth.” It’s human nature. Honestly admitting that we do it is not human nature.
Until we all admit we are “guilty” of altering reality, we will have people out there who believe Donald Trump was denied the presidency and that Joe Biden had no idea whatsoever what his son was doing.
Until we take a deep breath and are willing to look at things as they really are…or at least admit that we tend to overlook things that “ruin” our story, we will never walk the yellow brick road…together.
“Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked very hard from early morning till late night and did not know what joy was. He was gray too, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.” ―The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
While it’s traditional to begin a commencement address with a joke or a humorous anecdote, I will not break character. Although it is hard to believe, I never laughed. I was stern and silent. I was gray in a gray world. Rather than regale you with bromides and empty promises, I want to talk to you from the heart in an intelligent way with the courage of my convictions.
I shed a bucketful of tears the other day when I learned of the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. That such a tragic event should cast a dark cloud over your special day is powerfully sad. However, sadness is like a cancer that spreads like wildfire.
As sad as the most recent mass shooting in a school is, what is sadder is if we forget before we do something about it.
You might be asking yourself what you possibly do about it. You have enough on your plate: college loans, Covid, inflation, and supply chain issues to name just a few of the potholes on your yellow brick road.
Did college prepare you for the “real world?” Are you ready to take your place as an active participant in the life that awaits you? I am here to tell you that if you spent the last four years of your life only focused on getting an entry-level job at the expense of becoming the person you could be, then you wasted four years of your life.
As a young child you learned how to read. But unless you read to learn, you have many miles to go because learning is the carrot on the end of the stick. Learning is the spur that urges us on. Learning did not only happen in your classes. In fact, I believe that not much real learning goes on in the classroom. Learning was hiding all over the campus. Learning masqueraded as an opportunity. And as an old man, I can tell you that opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
That’s the message I want to give you today. Be aware of the opportunities that tap you on the shoulder and then choose wisely because you have a lot to consider when an opportunity comes your way.
If you did learn anything in college, I hope you learned how to think….critically; how to love…unconditionally; and how to have the courage to stand up to the forces of evil that will come your way.
Don’t allow yourself to become gray. Don’t believe there is nothing you can do, because every act of kindness you do will make a difference in the world. Don’t wait for tomorrow to live. Live now. Open yourself to new and meaningful friendships. Open your mind to new ideas. Have fun doing whatever you do. Find something to be enthusiastic about and find something to be indignant about. Then do something about both.
And lastly, appreciate the gift of life because it is a precious gift, a gift that was denied to the precious children and teachers at Robb Elementary. Since their names will never be called at a college commencement, I would like to end my talk to you today by calling out the names of those innocent children and the two wonderful teachers whose lives were cut short:
Makenna Lee Elrod
Layla Salazar
Maranda Mathis
Nevaeh Bravo
Jose Manuel Flores Jr.
Xavier Lopez
Tess Marie Mata
Rojelio Torres
Eliahna “Ellie” Amyah Garcia
Eliahna A. Torres
Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez
Jackie Cazares
Uziyah Garcia
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos
Maite Yuleana Rodriguez
Jailah Nicole Silguero
Amerie Jo Garza
Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio
Alithia Ramirez
Eva Mireles (teacher)
Irma Garcia (teacher)
Go forth today believing that you are a unique crayon whose job it is to add your color to the world. And don’t forget to color outside the lines!
All Dorothy knew after falling into Munchkin Land was that if she wanted to get back home she’d have to go to Emerald City where she’d have to ask the Wizard to help her. She didn’t have a GPS. She didn’t think she’d need one since all she had to do was follow the Yellow Brick Road. However, she came to an intersection where she had to make a decision. Which way should she go? She posed the question out loud. To her surprise, her question was answered when the Scarecrow told her she could go “that way” or she go could go “that way.”
Following some small talk with a self-acclaimed “brainless” creature she and the Scarecrow were off to Oz. Did you ever wonder why they chose to go in the direction they did? As luck would have it, they chose the right” road because it did lead to the Emerald City. But, how do we know that the two roads she didn’t choose might have also ended up at the gates of the Emerald City? Considering the ardor of her journey, might the roads not traveled have been better for her? Had she chosen to follow either of the other roads she would more likely than not have ever met the Tin Man and the Lion. But…who knows who she might have met.
Aren’t we all like Dorothy? We are told to go and live our lives. We set out on a road that is usually straight and narrow. It’s not until we come to an intersection when we have to make a decision. Which road do we take? Unlike Frost’s poem where the traveler has to choose one of two roads that diverged in the woods, our choices are not always that limited. And as we get older we realize there are consequences that go along with the road we choose.
I fear that when it comes to politics our roads are Frostian. While we are not forced to take one political road over another, we are limited. For some reason taking the left road puts us on the Democratic path, while going right we are following the Republican path.,
As long as I can remember, it did matter what political path you chose. In fact people identified with the road. They would die on that road. They would support any candidate of that road’s persuasion…no matter who or what. They would grow to loathe those people who elected to choose the other road.
I am not stuck on the intersection. I just have chosen not to choose one of the two roads because it seems that once your choose a road you must pay full and total allegiance to all that road stands for.
And that I think is why both of the big roads lead to hell. Because people are either following the Democrat Brick Road or the Republican Brick Road they are blinded by the light.
Did I ever think Trump was worthy of the office of President of the United States? No. Did I think Hillary Clinton was worthy? Not so much. The only difference between the two of them, for me at least, had to do with their character. I didn’t trust either of them as political leaders because I personally don’t believe in any politician. I think all of them are full of BS. They are consumed by power and control.
As repulsed as I was by Trump’s character, I didn’t hate him. That doesn’t mean I thought he was good for the country. That only means that our fragile electoral system had put him in the White House. I had faith in our three branches of government with its check and balances.
I did not like the fact that the Democrats set out to defeat him after he “won” the election. But, I was also smart enough to know that it was a big numbers game that had more to do with the number of Democrats or Republicans in the House and Senate than it had to do with those same people representing ALL their constituents. And while voters can vote a Republican/Democrat in or out in Congress, an appointed Supreme Court Justice is horse of a different color. Giving Trump the power to nominate a SCOTUS member was anathema to “Democrats.” It was just another thing that elevated the hatred between the two parties.
Party politics is, in my opinion, what has polluted our spirits. The pollution has flooded the news networks, cable shows and all forms of social media. We are drowning in hatred. Instead of anyone throwing us a life preserver, we are being pulled underwater because we have allowed a political party’s ideology to fill our pockets with heavy stones.
As tragic as the Covid pandemic is, hatred is worse. There is now vaccine for Covid. Is there one for hated?
At the end of third grade I literally begged my father to let me take up the clarinet. (What was I smoking?) My father being true to himself said “no.” There was no arguing with him on anything. He did, however, leave a little wiggle-room. He said that if I still wanted to play the clarinet in a year, he would let me start playing the clarinet in the fifth grade. Since I still wanted to play, he relented and I started my music career as a ten-year old who was eager but not a musical prodigy.
I actually worked hard. I did practice to the annoyance of my sister who kept telling me I sounded like I was killing cats. I was not to be deterred. While a student in the Seaford Public school district I didn’t, to my father’s surprise, quit. No. I kept killing cats.
By my senior year as a student at St. Agnes Cathedral High School I managed to work my way up to first chair clarinet. (Not a position that garnered me any status, but an accomplishment nonetheless. I even had a solo in our spring concert.)
There was something about looking at a piece of sheet music that intrigued me. There was something else. I had this understanding that an orchestra is only as great as the weakest player. I also learned how amazing it was that when third row clarinets or trumpets played their individual parts it didn’t sound like the piece of music we were playing. The piece of music only came alive when all the parts of all the instruments were played together that music was made.
Although I only played in a band/orchestra for seven years, the experience ruined me for ever becoming a rock or heavy metal fan. That’s because my ears were trained to hear all the different sounds being made by the different players.
To this day whenever I hear an orchestra play, my ears revert back to a time when they were attuned to hearing the difference sounds an instrument made as a part of a whole.
We live in a world filled with hundreds of different instruments all of them playing at once. Only the sound being made is cacophonous. It’s hard on the ears. There is no harmony. There is no melody. It is just noise.
I remember a quote on one of my music folders when I was in the sixth grade. It read: all noise is sound, but only good sound is music.
Is there someone we can blame for the horrible sound we are making? I don’t want to point a finger, but there’s one factor I’ve left out of this analogy. That’s the director/conductor. Without a good conductor the assembled instruments will just make noise. A good director literally knows “the score,” and they know how to make sure all the parts are heard. They know how to make music.
America is in need of a good conductor.
Note: The link here is a four minute example of the “sound of music.” Listen and you’ll hear music for more than a dozen Broadway musicals.
As I flipped through the pages of our local/daily newspaper, my eye caught a picture of the young actor Jacob Tremblay who played the part of Auggie Pullman in the movie “Wonder.” The paper’s “blurb” about the movie said: A boy who has a facial deformity attends a public school.
My reaction to the blurb was WTF? Imagine “Gone With the Wind” described as a movie “about a couple who can’t get along during the Civil War.” Or “Casablanca” described as a movie “about two people who unexpectedly run into each other in a bar in Morocco.”
Obviously complex movies that are really about something cannot be described in a sentence of a dozen words.”
“Wonder” had to be experienced to understand what it was all about.
So, what does this have to do with the YBR? How often are you described by people in a sentence of 12 words? Maybe it’s your occupation that takes center stage or perhaps it might be about your social status.
None of us can accurately be described. We are all beyond words because there are no words that can describe us…and if who we are can be reduced to a single sentence, there is something wrong.
When Dorothy began her journey on the YBR she was the victim of a limited description. She was Dorothy the meek and humble. She was Dorothy the house-dropper. She was Dorothy the girl who wanted to get home.
But we all know she was much more than that.
And so are we. The problem I believe we run into is that we believe how people define us is the same as our “meaning.” All words have definitions, but the “meaning” of a word cannot alway be found in its definition.
The definition of the word “wonder” is: a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
Not bad, but “wonder” means a lot more than that. Wonder is being transported to a world almost beyond our reach. Wonder is an experience that leaves us “breathless.” Wonder is the driving force that leads us to discover…everything.
Come to think of it, the full title of the Baum classic is “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” And isn’t that what it’s all about? Wondering? A life without wonder is not a life at all.
Note: If you’ve never seen the movie “Wonder,” do yourself a favor…watch it.
Along The Yellow Brick Road 