Commencement means Begin!

In the unlikely event that I should be asked to deliver a Commencement address, I am ready with a story that tells so much about the serendipitous twists and turns of life and concludes with one of life's big questions: How do you know that you have not been brought here, for such a time as this"?

Here is my unofficial translation of the Book of Esther taken from the Old Testament:*

A powerful Persian King XERXES threw a lavish party for his bro-ligarchy. His wife VASHTI had her own gal-pals gathered in her chambers when she was summoned by her husband to perform for the men. She refused! He banished her from the Kingdom for shaming him. His bro's convinced him to write an edict to go out to all wives that henceforth they must honor their husbands. The search then begins for a new Queen. The harem is the first place they look.

A young Jewish woman lives outside the gates with her Uncle MORDECAI who knows that HADASSAH (her real name) would be a great fit because of her extraordinary charm and beauty and wit, but she is Jewish and therefore not acceptable. He wants her life to be better than what he is able to provide, so he renames her ESTHER.

Esther is accepted into the harem. After countless hours pampering herself in order to be presented to the King, at long last she is summoned to meet her potential spouse. Xerxes is smitten by Esther's beauty AND her intelligence. The two have a lavish wedding while Mordecai waits outside the gates because Jews are not allowed to enter the Kingdom. (They are usually deported if found). Esther stays in touch with her uncle by messenger (texting) She tells him everything that is going on inside the Kingdom. One day, he overhears two insiders at the gate plotting a coup. Mordecai sends word to Esther, who in the knick of time averts the King's murder by spilling the beans. She does not say how she learned of the coup attempt.

Meanwhile, Mordecai has a confrontation with the King's chief of staff, HAMAM, who admonishes the Jew for not bowing down to him. (Saying, "You should be more grateful", or something like that . . .). Hamam can't handle it and decides to convince his boss that all Jewish people should pay for such irreverance. Hence, Xerses is duped into signing AND sealing with his gold initialed ring (X) a proclamation that all Jews will be murdered on the 13th of the month. No exceptions. Everyone must go. This means death to all of Esther's relatives and the village from where she came.

Mortified Mordecai sends Esther an urgent message to tell the King to stop the coming genocide of HER own people! Esther says no to Uncle, explaining that she cannot go before her husband, the King, without being summoned lest she herself be murdered. As if that's not enough, she would have to tell him the truth about her Jewish identity. Uncle M advises her to suck it up. He asks her the big question: Have you considered that "You have been brought to the Kingdom for such a time as this"?

A few plot twists follow including the King discovering that his own life had been spared from an attempted coup by Mordecai. Esther rises above her subservient role and invites her husband to a banquet rather than waiting for him to initiate the encounter she is seeking. She butters up his chief of staff knowing she will have to get passed him if she is to convince her husband to rescind the proclamation. The official seal of the ring prohibits even a King from doing so because it is against the law. . . and no one is above the law, not even the King!

Xerxes accepts the invitation to the banquet-- Esther summons her courage to tell Xerses that she is of Jewish descent and that his order will lead to the death of all her people in the coming days. NOTE: (This is now known as the Feast of Purim in Jewish tradition). The King begins to see the big picture, including that he has been duped by his boastful, arrogant chief of staff, the biggest sycophant there ever was (before the twenty-first century).

First, the King orders Hamam to be hung in the village square! Second, he sends out a new proclamation to save the Jewish people from mass murder, and instead grants them permission to avenge their would-be murderers! In the famous final scene, Uncle Mordecai becomes the chief of staff!

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Commencement means begin, but all that led to this all-important moment is chock full of choices and decisions calling to rise above it vis-a-vis that big question: How do you know that you have not been brought here (to this day) for such a time as this?

Congratulations to Sarah Eugenia on Commencement at Lesley University, May 16, 2026 Master's Degree in Art Therapy

*bible.usccb.org

All Shall Be Well! Pushing out the darkness on pilgrimage. The Light of Light prevailed through days together at Julian of Norwich's Anchorage.

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Pilgrim Sisters, Meridith and Julie at the British Library in London reviewing "Revelations of Divine Love" manuscripts written by 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, the first woman known to have written a book in English.

This year's Peregrine Falcons hatched on May 5 during our first days in Norwich. See live from their nestbox atop Norwich Cathedral:

https://hawkandowltrust.org/live-cameras/norwich-cathedral-peregrines

The return is essential to completing a pilgrimage. This morning I arose with the morning light back home in St. Augustine, Florida, USA.

Sunrise over the San Sebastian River St Augustine

Thank you to all my friends and colleagues in Norwich for another meaningful pilgrimage.

School children all across the country know this drill.

After the fact, in that Washington hotel ballroom, rising from under the table with Boston Globe correspondents, one of the daughters of the late Robert Kennedy, gunned down 60 years ago after his brother, President John Kennedy was killed by a rifle shot, said to Senator Jamie Raskin, "Imagine school children all across the country every single day live with this fear".

https://youtu.be/QZk-qtlpLho?si=XEqCUnbvLfBwNAXJ

The whole country saw the video of the press ducking under tables in their finery. Each one has a personal story to tell about an evening when the White House Press Correspondents expected their annual event would be about the First Amendment until a lone gunmen carrying loaded guns disrupted the dinner laid out on platters and champagne flutes bubbling to the brim.

These mature, seasoned professional adults have written numerous stories about too many other live shootings across the USA---too often in classrooms where children and a few adults are the only ones that come between the shots fired by someone with too much anger to bear---so instead bears arms---claiming that right under the Second Amendment.

"Security" was served up as soup du jour at the press conference hastily held at the White House. Security undeniably was in full view and then some, and pressed (pun intended) into action on a moment's notice. Security worked to prevent a massacre.

Security is second to guns when almost anyone can get one and carry it into any environment where people become sitting ducks---like carnival ducks all in a row---while the shooter has every opportunity to hit at least one duck that moves into the cross hairs of a gun in hand.

Security is not the issue--guns are the issue. Ask the adults who show-up at schools after receiving a fateful text from a child's school if security or guns mattered when that bullet flew through the air at their child. Sure, we have seen some who were in charge of security failing to do what they were there to do, but, security was present in spite of them. If it were not for the guns, those children in school and those church and synagogue goers who died by a bullet could tell the world what it was like to face that fear. After the fact it is too late to blame security. After the fact is time to say THIS IS THE LAST TIME!

On the anniversary of a mass shooting in the tiny school in Dunblane, Scotland, I wrote a blog about how those parents and other responsible adults in the community determined that would be the last. They succeeded in changing the gun laws throughout the entire UK. It was the last school shooting.

Americans turn a blind eye when it comes to the weaker among us. We will see what happens now that the powerful are in the sights of gun-carrying individuals intent on taking a room full of grown-ups to their knees before they get to eat their words, or finish their creme brulee.

Will this be the last time---long overdue?

Every reporter in that room was fortunate to live to write about it. Therefore, I should think the First Amendment gives carte blanch to writing headlines that won't go away until guns go away for good. Laws are needed now to stop the carnival game played by some under the shield of the Second Amendment.