I came across this Mark Twain quote on faith in a predictably circuitous fashion. For some reason, I recently searched for two professors I had at UVa in the religious studies department: Ellen Deese who taught a seminar on C.S. Lewis and Sam Lloyd who conducted a lecture on Lewis and Tolkien. In my attempts to find them (and/or their writings) on the internet, I discovered a commencement address to the graduating class of 2001 at my Alma mater.
Now, I happen to have a fascination with commencement addresses yet none that I have either read or watched, given to a “secular” institution anyway, have addressed the issue of faith so directly. I’d like to share that part of it with you, slightly abridged. It was written by Francis Collins, physician-geneticist who is renowned for his leadership in the Human Genome Project and currently serves as director of NIH. He frames his speech with four questions: What will be your life’s work? What are you going to do about faith? What are going to do about love? How will you keep fun in your life?
As for the second question in the lineup, here’s what he has to say:
“Well, this is the one that makes people squirm…But can there be any more important questions than these: How did we all get here? What is the meaning of life? How is it that we know deep-down inside what is right and wrong and yet rarely succeed in doing what is right for more than about thirty minutes? What happens to us after we die?
Surely these are among the most critical questions in life…But how much time have you spent on them? Perhaps you, like I, grew up in a home where faith played a significant role, but you never made it your own. Or you concluded it was a fuzzy area that made you uncomfortable. Or even concluded that it was all superstition, like Mark Twain’s schoolboy, who when requested to define faith said, ‘It is believing what you know ain’t so.’ Or perhaps you simply assumed that as you grew in knowledge of science that faith was incompatible with a rigorous intellect and that God was irrelevant and obsolete. Well, I am here to tell you that this is not so.
All of those half-truths against the possibility of God have holes in them big enough to drive a truck through, as I learned by reading C.S. Lewis. In my view, there is no conflict between being a ‘rigorous, show me the data’ physician-scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes a personal interest in each one of us and whose domain is in the spiritual world. A domain not possible to explore by the tools of language and science, but with the heart, the mind and the soul.
Yet, it is remarkable how many of us fail to consider those questions of eternal significance until some personal crisis or advancing age forces us to face our own spiritual impoverishment. Don’t make that mistake.”
I think it’s actually more interesting now to see how people distill what truly matters in life than it was 28 years ago! Much like the academic world, the business world is saturated with books, blogs, articles, videos and pod casts on how to be successful.
Last week I had the privilege of hearing the head coach of the UVa men’s tennis team speak to my real estate company on just that. I loved what he said as he reflected upon a first-ever NCAA championship, which could be attributed to a variety of things that happened ON the court. What made the critical difference, he argued, was what happened OFF the court- the tireless investment he and his assistant coaches have made in the players’ lives. This is entirely consistent with my observations of every highly successful entrepreneur I know – that building a business is about building relationships – as well as with Dr. Collin’s assertion that, “it is one person at a time where we really leave a legacy.”
I am reminded of a note I wrote to some young people I chaperoned during beach week after my oldest daughter’s graduation from high school in 2011. Quite inspired by my 18- year-old “charges” yet quite uninspired by their commencement speaker, I felt led to give them my “two cents.” In my not-terribly-original but sincere message, I talked about meaningful work…and love…and of course, faith concluding with:
At the end of your life, the only thing that will matter are your relationships. Wealth, status and material possessions will fade away. Get out of your comfort zone and take risks; laugh often; and maintain your curiosity and thirst for knowledge. If you are able, go to a developing country and witness first-hand poverty and oppression. It will change your life.
I have tried to live according to this advice, albeit ever so imperfectly. Here’s what I would add nearly three years later: absolutely everything is a gift whether it appears to be or not. Your life – your “blazing furnace” of a life – is a gift. As are this day and the next 10 minutes. So too, “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” – to use the iconic Wide World of Sport’s slogan.
Yes, even circumstances which you may find unbearable. Yet I don’t believe you can will yourself into this perspective. It requires a measure of faith – in something or someone larger than yourself – for which you just might need to pray.
And if you’re struggling with how to do that, here is a simple one which came to me on a recent trip to Haiti: “The white flag is raised, dear God, I surrender.”
He’ll take it from there, I promise.
– Caroline Watkins
