Full text of recent UBC Speech:
Your Honour, Professor Ono, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen;
What a sweet, sweet thing a homecoming is – especially for those of us for whom home was lost. What a sweet thing it is to rise in one’s lifetime from a category of enemy to a category of friend, from a place of the despised to a place of honour. And how deeply honoured I am to be here today to witness this historic event.
I am imagining this space filled now with the spirits of the Issei and the Nisei who are rejoicing along with us in this magnificent celebration of one of our own, which is also a celebration of all of us.
President Obama spoke of the long arc of history bending towards freedom. It does that. It bends towards the good. It bends towards home. It bends towards the light.
In times of darkness, that long arc seems to get longer. But one of the things to know about darkness is that the light is hidden within it. And one of the qualities that most moves me about the new president of UBC, is his capacity for vulnerability and his openness. In his openness, in revealing what is hidden within him the light shines through and it warms us, it comforts us, it heals us and it guides us. In enables us to do likewise and to be more fully known and more fully loved.
I am going to read a few words from the prologue to my latest book Gently to Nagasaki, which is a cry for the presence of mercy among us, in the human condition.
In the dark light before dawn, in the deep light before dawn, the hidden voice comes. Named and Nameless, the Goddess of Mercy, She, the compassionate one who heeds the wailing in a world of weeping, comes to us.
Down and down through the sensate sea she dances, a rider of the vast turtle that roams the eastern myths. We hear her in the breath surrounding this blue-green planet, her singing as sunlight in the new day rising.
I am with you, she sings. I am with you through the water, under the water, in the birthing, in the forgetting, in the terror and at the heart of what you most fear, I am with you. Through the long dark night of every absence, I am with you, therefore fear not.
Thank you Professor Ono for your choice to be present among us. Today we are witnesses to the arc of history that bends towards the good. We welcome the light that guides us towards a better world. It is the attention of the light that creates our seeing.
Your Honour, Professor Ono, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen;
What a sweet, sweet thing a homecoming is – especially for those of us for whom home was lost. What a sweet thing it is to rise in one’s lifetime from a category of enemy to a category of friend, from a place of the despised to a place of honour. And how deeply honoured I am to be here today to witness this historic event.
I am imagining this space filled now with the spirits of the Issei and the Nisei who are rejoicing along with us in this magnificent celebration of one of our own, which is also a celebration of all of us.
President Obama spoke of the long arc of history bending towards freedom. It does that. It bends towards the good. It bends towards home. It bends towards the light.
In times of darkness, that long arc seems to get longer. But one of the things to know about darkness is that the light is hidden within it. And one of the qualities that most moves me about the new president of UBC, is his capacity for vulnerability and his openness. In his openness, in revealing what is hidden within him the light shines through and it warms us, it comforts us, it heals us and it guides us. In enables us to do likewise and to be more fully known and more fully loved.
I am going to read a few words from the prologue to my latest book Gently to Nagasaki, which is a cry for the presence of mercy among us, in the human condition.
In the dark light before dawn, in the deep light before dawn, the hidden voice comes. Named and Nameless, the Goddess of Mercy, She, the compassionate one who heeds the wailing in a world of weeping, comes to us.
Down and down through the sensate sea she dances, a rider of the vast turtle that roams the eastern myths. We hear her in the breath surrounding this blue-green planet, her singing as sunlight in the new day rising.
I am with you, she sings. I am with you through the water, under the water, in the birthing, in the forgetting, in the terror and at the heart of what you most fear, I am with you. Through the long dark night of every absence, I am with you, therefore fear not.
Thank you Professor Ono for your choice to be present among us. Today we are witnesses to the arc of history that bends towards the good. We welcome the light that guides us towards a better world. It is the attention of the light that creates our seeing.
