Flower Sunday Welcome
President Diana Chapman Walsh
September 17, 2006

Thank you so much for that warm welcome. I confess I feel a bit nostalgic on this, my last Flower Sunday as president, and I so appreciate the generosity of your acknowledgement.

As I become more conscious that my time here is running short, I find myself with a strong impulse to be doing a little teaching. So I want to tell you a bit of the history of this moment we are marking today.

Flower Sunday has been held annually every year since the second year of the college -- 1876. This year is the 130th Flower Sunday – a “milestone” anniversary.

The story of Flower Sunday is part of the lore of the college, and it goes something like this.

In 1875, the first year of the brand new college, Henry Durant (who with his wife, Pauline, founded Wellesley) invited a clergyman he knew to preach the opening sermon.

Durant’s religion was a bit harsh -- in the flinty New England fire and brimstone tradition. And this minister, Mr. Durant’s friend, chose as his text, "Thou hast hedged me about so that I cannot get out."

The chapel was in College Hall then – that one enormous building (you’ve seen pictures of it, and the pillars between Tower Court and the lake. It housed everything – sleeping rooms, classrooms, dining rooms, essentially the whole college.

It must have had a bit of a cloistered feeling for these young students, who must have been a bit homesick and unsure, anyway, so early in the year, what they had signed up for. And then this minister says they’re hedged in and can’t get out.

According to the centennial history of the college, Mr. Durant looked up and "saw eyes filled with tears" during that first sermon. So he decided he ought to lighten it up after that.

The next year, in 1876, he invited a different clergyman, who selected a different text: "God is love." The service opened with the singing of the hymn, “Ode to Joy,” and the chapel in College Hall was filled with flowers.

That worked a lot better and hence was born the tradition we honor and extend today – Flower Sunday – which has now evolved into the extraordinary and creative multifaith tradition with which Wellesley has been pioneering over the past 15 years.

This summer we are going to begin a total renovation of this chapel – in which we plan to create a large and beautiful multifaith space in the lower level (it will be exciting) and we’ll also renovate this upper chapel, and make it more comfortable and more welcoming to all faith traditions.

When Houghton Memorial Chapel was built (it was dedicated in 1899), the theme from that second Sunday that started Flower Sunday -- "God is love" -- was inscribed high in the center of the chancel. You can see it behind me. It will remain, I assure you, after the renovation.

Last Monday morning, as I was just completing a run around the lake with my dog Phillip, we came to the Chapel and I glanced at my watch. It was 8:03 a.m.

Last Monday, as you may recall, was September 11, and I had heard earlier that morning on the radio that one of the hijacked planes took off at 8:03. We spent a lot of time in the chapel on that awful day five years ago, as you can imagine, seeking solace, and understanding, and courage, and hope.

So I tied Phillip to the railing outside and tried the Chapel door, found It open and walked in. No one was here but I stood alone for a moment to remembered that heartbreaking day, remembered all the people who died needlessly and all those whose lives have been changed forever, including a number of people connected to Wellesley – and all the innocent people all over the world – Americans, Afghanis, Iraqis … so many others, who have died in the aftermath of that tragedy.

And then I looked up and saw the inscription God is Love – a teaching that lies at the heart of every faith and wisdom tradition of which I am aware, the idea that we humans are connected through bonds of love.

Now I don’t want to sound like Henry Durant’s first preacher – bringing into our beautiful celebration of sisterhood and friendship the memory of all that death and destruction -- because my message is just the opposite.

I see you here – looking so beautiful– taking care of one another, celebrating sisterhood, carrying forward a tradition that has survived 130 years -- through many unsettling periods of war and uncertainty and darkness and fear -- celebrating a tradition in which we come together every year to reaffirm our bonds of community, and mutual strength, and friendship, and love …

And I know with such certainty that you will continue to embody those values -- for this college and for the world – through good times and bad, smelling the flowers, staying together, supporting one another, looking after your less fortunate sisters where ever you find them, tending the fires of friendship.

And I am filled with such hope for the future in your presence. And such gratitude that you are here.

So I would like to invite you to reflect in silence with me about that hopeful future that is within our power to create – because the way we will create it is by staying connected to one another and to the possibilities that can take shape if we choose to channel our energies into work that is life-giving.

I’ll read a poem by Pablo Neruda, called "Keeping Quiet." After I’ve finished, let’s all just sit in silence together for a few moments and think about the things for which you are most grateful today.

“Keeping Quiet” by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside with their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity;
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.

I am going to go, as you know, at the end of this academic year, but not yet. And I’m so looking forward to this year in your company.

I know that when I do go, I’ll leave this college in your capable hands. And one of the things for which I am increasingly grateful, as I anticipate that moment of separation that I know will be hard, is the confidence I have in all of you to carry forward the values for which this beautiful college has stood, now stands, and will, in the future stand.

So I thank you, my brilliant and exuberant Wellesley sisters, for being here on this lovely day, and for who you are.

 

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