Cynics will tell you that there’s no such thing as a common humanity. They will point to the bloodletting in the Middle East, to the war in Afghanistan, and to the September 11^th terrorist attacks, as proof. They will tell you that we humans are so different, and our differences so irreconcilable, that we are doomed to inflict and suffer pain, to hate and be hated, to oppress and be oppressed, to kill and be killed – all in the name of a selfish survival.

Don’t believe these cynics, even for a moment. Don’t let them harden your hearts to human suffering.  Don’t let them teach you to doubt your instincts. Don’t heed the seductive music of their Siren songs that tell of a Sparta-like world where only the fittest, smartest and most privileged survive, and therefore everyone should look out for number one.

To be human is to be connected to others. It is to care about their fate. It is to feel their pain and to strive to alleviate it. It is to subsume self under Universal Selfhood. Chief Seattle, a hero of mine and a prophet for all time, tells us in unforgettable eloquence inspired by communion with the Great Spirit that we are all strands in the sacred web of life. And the poet John Donne, in his 17th Meditation, wrote that "no man is an island, entire of itself...Any man's death diminishes me, for I'm involved in mankind." The African spirit of Ubuntu reminds us that we can't be fully human until we acknowledge and affirm the humanity of others.

I emphatically believe that no one is free until we are all free, that no one is secure until there is justice for all, and that no one is human until there is a humane world.

I challenge you to have the courage to believe this. Especially now, when so much is conspiring to make you selfish, self-centered and self-indulgent. There’s too much horror in our world for you to become a generation of lotus eaters. We saw that horror on September 11^th when terrorists, armed with hatred and hiding their inhumanity under the cloak of Islam, the religion of Peace, murdered thousands of innocent human beings. We see that horror in the Middle East, where the beast that devoured the hope of peace with the assassination of Prime minister Yitzak Rabin, now slouches with bloody paws and ravenous maw across the holy land, maiming and killing the children of Abraham. We see that horror in Africa, where the AIDS pandemic—which has already killed 21.8 million human beings worldwide, 4.3 million of them children – threatens to decimate an entire continent while the rest of the world looks on with surreal indifference, as it did during the genocide in Rwanda, where 800,000 people were murdered in several weeks of fratricidal hell. We see that horror across Europe, where the lessons of the Holocaust seem to have been forgotten in orgies of ethnic cleansing and a growing anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi movement. We see that horror in Asia, where India and Pakistan are poised to annihilate each other with nuclear weapons. And we see that horror in South America, where the rainforest is being raped, and the cultures of indigenous people are being contaminated, in the name of profit.

To save our common humanity, you must learn different lessons. You must learn that racism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamic-phobia, anti-Semitism, oppression, exploitation, Sexism and Intolerance corrode the soul. You must learn that violence begets more violence, that we are our brother's and sister's keeper, and that it is suicidal folly to poison the womb of mother earth which shelters and nourishes us all.

If your souls become imbued with these lessons about our common humanity and interdependence, I have no doubt that you will break down the barriers that make us enemies of one another. You  will make freedom the breath of every human soul. You will bring about greater social and economic justice. You will form alliances for common causes across racial, ethnic and national boundaries. You will bring the balm of peace to nations bleeding from senseless wars. You will protect the planet, the hut in which the human extended family lives. And, above all, you will appreciate and celebrate – not just tolerate – the marvelous and enriching diversity of the human extended family.

Imbued with these lessons, you will be prepared, as the future leaders of the most powerful nation on earth, to which is yoked the destiny of the human race, to help lead the world in the right direction -- toward more justice and equality and freedom and peace -- where the din of war no longer deafen us to the symphony of our diverse cultures, where the flames of hatred no longer blind us to the loveliness of each different human face, and where the anodyne of materialism no longer deaden our spirits to what is True and Beautiful and Good in life.

And the key to this Paradise is unconditional love—that Promethean spark from the sacred fire. Love, my friends, is the answer to all our questions of Inhumanity, Intolerance and Injustice. Without love we are mere bubbles coughed up by chaos to froth a moment on its murky surface and then fizzle into the oblivion of nothingness. Without love there is no right or wrong, merely expediency, no future, just the moment, no soul, just the body, no God, just Man – solitary, selfish, scared and self-destructive.

With love there is nobility, goodness and beauty in life, despite the weariness, the fever and the fret that Keats lamented; there is a heroic vision to living that empowers humans to transcend the limitations of their mortality and aspire to do the eternal work of God. Only love can imbue what we do rightly with a life beyond life. Only Love can make our accomplishments shine like stars through the endless night of time, and bring the light of hope and faith to generations yet unborn and worlds yet to be created.

Only love can free us from the fear of death so we can begin to live. And only love can make us immortal. For immortality can only be achieved by good deeds, love’s handmaidens. Only they can sing such honest praise of our lives that like Orpheus with his golden lyre, they will compel the king of death to release our souls from the darkness of the grave into the splendor of Paradise. There, in the glittering palace of eternity, our souls, adorned with the radiance of our good deeds and virtue, will sit on sainted seats as the joyful brides of what is forever True and Beautiful and Divine. 

Such is the rapture that awaits those souls that have been ravished by love!

And should there be no Paradise for our souls to soar to on the golden wings of our good deeds after we die, then there will be Paradise enough in the hearts of those we have helped and served and loved while we lived.

They, my friends, will surely keep us immortal. They will say, with moist eyes and aching hearts, as their spirits hear the gentle breeze of memory whisper our names across the fields of solitude, “We miss you, dear friend. And we shall always remember the special way in which you touched our lives. You left behind in our hearts an imperishable part of yourself, which we shall cherish all the days of our lives, and shall bequeath to our children as the lodestar to a purposeful life.”

That is why you, my friends, in these times when, in the words of Yeats, the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity, must  have the courage to loudly and proudly speak out hatred, violence, war, injustice, and the suffering and oppression of God’s children wherever they are, and whatever their color, race, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation or nationality.

 That is why you, my friends, having seen the petrifying face of hatred and war, must emphatically speak the language of our common humanity – the language of kindness, understanding, forgiveness, empathy, tolerance, compassion, reconciliation and above all, the language of love – for the only moral thing human beings can do with the precious gift of life is to love one another.

So, as you bid farewell to this oasis of love, my friends, may your lives radiate beauty, truth and goodness wherever you go, and may the treasures of your bountiful hearts enrich the lives of all those who, on the garlanded stage of life, will be fortunate to dance with your blessed spirits.