Sister Joan Chittister: "Rebel, rebel, rebel – for all our sakes, rebel. For if the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow.""

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/june/baccalaureate-address-chittister-061612.html

Stanford Report, June 16, 2012

By Kathleen J. Sullivan

 

"Chittister advised the graduating students to choose their heroes wisely, because they would be the measure of their character, ideals and legacy:
"If you want to lead the world to compassion, you must surround yourself with the compassionate, rather than the uncaring.
"If you want to lead the world to wholeness, you must follow the peacemakers, not the warmongers.
"If you want to lead the world to the freedom you learned here, equality for everyone must mean more to you than domination by anyone.
"Justice must mean more to you than money. People must mean more to you than fame. Ideals must mean more to you than power or politics or public approval."
Chittister said that the motto under which the graduating students had been educated – the wind of freedom blows – was exactly what the world struggling between the challenges of the present and the ideals of the past requires.
She called on the graduating students to "rebel against the forces of death that are obstructing us from being fully human together."
Chittister quoted essayist Leo C. Rosten, who said that the purpose of life was not to be happy, but to matter – to have it make a difference that you lived at all.
She concluded her address with a call to leadership:
"To save this age, use your education, use your freedom, to make a difference in the way tomorrow's wind blows," she said.
"Inspire in those who follow you the conviction and the will to denounce the lies, to reject the greed, to resist the heretics of inhumanity who peddle inequality, injustice and the torturers' instruments of social violence.
"To be a real leader, by all means make a difference. Rebel, rebel, rebel – for all our sakes, rebel. For if the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow."