This is a unique and wonderful day! In many ways it is microcosmic of life and lives. It is a day of change, even exciting change. As we say hello to our new president; our new first lady; new faculty, staff, and administrators; and new students, we say goodbye to those who are graduating, transferring, or otherwise moving on. They, for the most part, are not sad goodbyes, but rather victorious, triumphant, potentially rewarding goodbyes—ones full of possibility, adventure, excitement, and change. It is all happening as anticipated it would be—and, in fact, as it should be.
The process of change before us is difficult to define. Brigham Young University-Idaho, for example, is expectant with hope and confidence as President and Sister Clark assume their place at the head of the university. New and returning students arrive—confident that ambitious, self-imposed and newly committed-to expectations will be realized. The irony of definition comes with the fact that the university will move forward—very much the place it has always been for well over 100 years and, at the same time, we are clearly aware that it will never be the same again.
As with the school, so it is with each one of us. We will always be who we have always been; and yet, in ways that are significant, we ought to never again be the same as we figuratively and literally walk out these doors and assume rightful places as contributing citizens of the world.
Perhaps the key is to welcome and embrace change as an agent of growth, with all of its unknowns, fears, and challenges. If rightly viewed, whatever changes come, the reality of confronting their attendant challenges will only reinforce the essential identity of who we are and what we are capable of contributing.
Lines penned by Kimber Ricks, a long-time associate and friend of this institution, are instructive:
Oh, that I could go, yet stay,
Have tomorrow; keep today.
Cherish, hold my yesterday . . .
. . . my yesterday, now treasured dear,
was once tomorrow, seen with fear. [1]
Following his service in the Eisenhower cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture, President Ezra Taft Benson once observed: “Every right carries with it a responsibility. Every opportunity is a challenge.”[2] President Benson went on to share four recommendations for successfully dealing with opportunity and challenge:
• We must know the challenge we face.
• We must maintain faith.
• We must shore up our weaknesses and increase our strength.
• We must be worthy through righteous living and desires for continued divine blessings.[3]
These understandings serve us well as individuals and as an institution. In any case, to see change or challenge as unfortunate impediments to reaching a goal is clearly shortsighted and misguided. Together, change and challenge become catalysts—moving us forward on the “charted course.”
Ultimately, it is our core values, our ideals, that shape each soul’s response to change and challenge. The ideals that guide us largely determine whether our capacity and our humanity and our faith are strengthened or weakened by the inevitable vicissitudes attendant to life and living.
President Spencer W. Kimball quoted from an address given by Carl Schurz at Faneuil Hall in Boston: “Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man in the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.”[4]
May your ideals, values, and faith in God the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ guide you along a true course. May your destiny be one of goodness and joy, as well as the attendant peace that comes to the faithful from Him who knows best the truths associated with such things. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Changes, Kimber Orson Ricks
[2] The Red Carpet, Ezra Taft Benson, p. 214
[3] Ibid., p. 126
[4] Educating Zion, Welch/Norton, p. 67