Head of Upper School Laura Ross Delivers Final Baccalaureate Address
At the first Baccalaureate ceremony in Rose Hall of the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center on campus, Head of Upper School Laura Ross delivered the address to the Class of 2017. Laura Ross will leave after this year to serve as Head of Upper School at Harvard-Westlake School in California.
Her address follows:
However, I was always drawn to stories about faith. When I was in early high school, I somehow discovered the writings of the Jewish novelist Chaim Potok and read everything he’d written and was especially fascinated by the friendship of the two boys at the center of his seminal novel The Chosen. Though I couldn’t have named it then, what interested me was the intersection of faith and reason and the role that faith and religion plays both in the individual lives of people and families and then also in the great sweep of human history.
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Her address follows:
Good afternoon to all – class of 2017, families, friends and colleagues. I am deeply honored to have been chosen by the senior class to speak to you today at this Baccalaureate service. I love the tradition of Baccalaureate. I love the chance to reflect on this liminal moment in time when you are no longer high school students but you have also not yet embarked on the next stage of your journeys.
It’s important to have a time to pause and reflect because without a moment to slow down, these events and ceremonies at the end of the year can just seem like one more thing to dress up for and drive to and have pictures taken at and smile for. I love that Baccalaureate is about finding meaning, because meaning is what I want to talk to you about today.
It’s important to have a time to pause and reflect because without a moment to slow down, these events and ceremonies at the end of the year can just seem like one more thing to dress up for and drive to and have pictures taken at and smile for. I love that Baccalaureate is about finding meaning, because meaning is what I want to talk to you about today.
I did not grow up in a religious household. My mother always said that golf on Sundays was all the religion she needed, and my father had the deep and abiding scorn for organized religion held by many intellectuals. When my grandfather got baptized at the age of 75 he winked at me as he walked down the aisle of the church and said, “just in case.” I never went to church or even really knew anybody who regularly did. I frankly hadn’t really thought about faith or belief much at all. If someone asked me at that time what I believed I would proudly say I was an atheist. I saw it as a badge of honor – that I believed in the power of science and reason and didn’t need stories about a higher power to get me through my days.
However, I was always drawn to stories about faith. When I was in early high school, I somehow discovered the writings of the Jewish novelist Chaim Potok and read everything he’d written and was especially fascinated by the friendship of the two boys at the center of his seminal novel The Chosen. Though I couldn’t have named it then, what interested me was the intersection of faith and reason and the role that faith and religion plays both in the individual lives of people and families and then also in the great sweep of human history.
When I got to college, I fully intended to be an English major because I figured that’s what people did who really liked to read books. However, after my first collegiate English class I realized that while reading was a great passion, the analysis of literature most decidedly was not.
That first semester, I also enrolled in a class called Ethnicity, Religion and Class in the Middle East. I loved everything about that class. I realized that religion was at the heart of so much – it’s intertwined in the studies of anthropology and sociology and history and politics. It’s in the great themes of literature and poetry and art. It’s a way of understanding the scope of the human experience that I found deeply compelling. So I declared a major in Religion. My parents thought I was insane. My father’s exact quote was, “maybe if we’d taken you to church once or twice when you were growing up you might have gotten this out of your system.”
That first semester, I also enrolled in a class called Ethnicity, Religion and Class in the Middle East. I loved everything about that class. I realized that religion was at the heart of so much – it’s intertwined in the studies of anthropology and sociology and history and politics. It’s in the great themes of literature and poetry and art. It’s a way of understanding the scope of the human experience that I found deeply compelling. So I declared a major in Religion. My parents thought I was insane. My father’s exact quote was, “maybe if we’d taken you to church once or twice when you were growing up you might have gotten this out of your system.”
I don’t mean to say that I had found any sort of personal religious conviction at that time, but I had found that I wanted to know more about how human beings made meaning in this life. I wanted to understand the way that religious movements changed human history from the spread of Islam through Spain and North Africa and the way that Buddhism grew and evolved in the various parts of Asia. While this was my academic life, I also auditioned for and joined the Ebony Singers, Wesleyan’s Gospel Choir. When I visited Wesleyan on my college tour, my host took me to see this group perform, and I swore that if I went to Wesleyan I would do everything I could to sing with them. I was drawn to the pure joy in singing that I saw in the performers. While there was certainly technical expertise, the emotion expressed in gospel music touched something in me that I didn’t know existed in my very secular upbringing. As a member of the Ebony Singers, we toured black churches up and down the Eastern seaboard. I watched the way that audience members reacted to the hymns we sang with their whole bodies and souls. I learned about gospel singers like the great Mahalia Jackson and tried to do justice to her music.
But mostly what I did was learn to feel. I was swept away by a religious fervor that wasn’t even mine but I wanted more of that feeling of being subsumed in something important and larger than myself.
But mostly what I did was learn to feel. I was swept away by a religious fervor that wasn’t even mine but I wanted more of that feeling of being subsumed in something important and larger than myself.
I wrote my final paper for my Religion major on the role that the music in black churches in South Africa played in the anti-apartheid movement. I became interested in the way faith impels to social action. I didn’t start going to church or believing in God, though as I got older I started to say that I was an agnostic rather than an atheist. As the hubris of youth wore off I began more and more to realize that I really didn’t know enough to make any definitive judgments. I got a tattoo to commemorate my graduation from college and I chose an infinity symbol to have a daily reminder of the infinite number of ways that life could go and the infinite mysteries that life holds.
In my career, I’ve worked at several different religiously based schools and at each of them I found great comfort and joy in the hymns we sang and in the wisdom of the religious services I attended. I still find the rituals of the liturgies in the Episcopal tradition to be deeply affecting and meaningful and I have grown to very much respect and admire social activists who come from a religious tradition and who use those values in the call for justice in this world.
In my career, I’ve worked at several different religiously based schools and at each of them I found great comfort and joy in the hymns we sang and in the wisdom of the religious services I attended. I still find the rituals of the liturgies in the Episcopal tradition to be deeply affecting and meaningful and I have grown to very much respect and admire social activists who come from a religious tradition and who use those values in the call for justice in this world.
Then, five years ago, I came to Greenhill, and before I started I got a call from Mr. Dan Kasten, who I didn’t know, asking me if I would be interested in teaching a class taught here called Inner Light. I had been teaching courses in subjects like Social Ethics and World Religions but had no experience with mindfulness and meditation. I was really nervous but in speaking to Dan I felt reassured that he would help me figure out how teach this class. I felt like an imposter on the first day because I was attempting to teach something that I didn’t actually know how to do, or so I thought. What quickly became apparent, however, is that what we were doing and studying in that class took me back to my reading interests in early high school.
What we were doing was finding meaning. We used stillness and attention as a way to allow for the space to uncover joy and beauty in this brief time we are all allotted on earth. It was like all the disparate strands of my personal and academic lives all came together.
What we were doing was finding meaning. We used stillness and attention as a way to allow for the space to uncover joy and beauty in this brief time we are all allotted on earth. It was like all the disparate strands of my personal and academic lives all came together.
I have always loved to hike and be outdoors, and when I was in my twenties I spent a summer backpacking in Nepal and walking the ancient salt trading routes of the Annapurna Mountain range. There were days where my best friend from high school and I would walk for hours in silence just taking in the majesty of where we were and we focused on continuing to put one foot in front of the other in a place more magisterial and strange than any I had ever encountered. When I sang gospel I was fully present in those moments of joy. When I studied religions I was trying to get at how people have tried to make something of this gift of life for all of human eternity.
Every society on earth has a founding myth. Every single one tells stories that explain where we come from and why we’re here. The gift of teaching this class helped me recognize that I didn’t need to follow a particular organized religion to have faith or to look for moments of grace. They are all around me and also in me. I have access to all of them at every moment of the day, and I have Greenhill School and Mr. Dan Kasten to thank for helping to answer a question I didn’t even recognize my soul was asking.
Every society on earth has a founding myth. Every single one tells stories that explain where we come from and why we’re here. The gift of teaching this class helped me recognize that I didn’t need to follow a particular organized religion to have faith or to look for moments of grace. They are all around me and also in me. I have access to all of them at every moment of the day, and I have Greenhill School and Mr. Dan Kasten to thank for helping to answer a question I didn’t even recognize my soul was asking.
I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes that sums up what I mean. It’s by Alan Lightman, who is a professor at MIT, and was the first person hired to teach at MIT in both the Humanities AND Sciences. He’s a remarkable person and thinker across many disciplines and I urge you to read some of his books, especially Einstein’s Dreams.
The quote goes like this: “Faith, in its broadest sense, is about far more than belief in the existence of God or the disregard of scientific evidence. Faith is the willingness to give ourselves over, at times, to things we do not fully understand. Faith is the belief in things larger than ourselves. Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments and at others to ride the passion and exuberance that is the artistic impulse, the flight of the imagination, the full engagement with this strange and shimmering world.”
The quote goes like this: “Faith, in its broadest sense, is about far more than belief in the existence of God or the disregard of scientific evidence. Faith is the willingness to give ourselves over, at times, to things we do not fully understand. Faith is the belief in things larger than ourselves. Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments and at others to ride the passion and exuberance that is the artistic impulse, the flight of the imagination, the full engagement with this strange and shimmering world.”
In my journey so far, I haven’t found religion, but I’ve found faith. I’ve found the ability to use my logical brain for reason and to let go and believe and feel at the same time. I don’t need to understand things to be moved by them. I don’t need to know if there’s a higher power to feel awe when I consider the mystery, abundance and pain of life.
This life is hard and we all carry burdens. Faith is the ability to share that load. It’s important to plan and implement and to fulfill our responsibilities to the best of our abilities. However, life will throw outcomes and situations at each of us that all the careful planning in the world can’t account for. That’s where faith comes in. The ability to let go sometimes - in awe, in joy, in sadness and in community has changed my life forever for the better.
This life is hard and we all carry burdens. Faith is the ability to share that load. It’s important to plan and implement and to fulfill our responsibilities to the best of our abilities. However, life will throw outcomes and situations at each of us that all the careful planning in the world can’t account for. That’s where faith comes in. The ability to let go sometimes - in awe, in joy, in sadness and in community has changed my life forever for the better.
One of the things I love about Greenhill is the fact as a non-sectarian school our students all bring their own different beliefs, religious backgrounds and faith systems with them, and have the opportunity to have share those beliefs with each other in a safe and nurturing space.
Class of 2017, as you continue your journey, remember that you have the power to choose who you are and what you believe. I hope, for you, that you choose faith, whatever that means to you. Embrace wherever your path leads you with an open mind, an open heart, a place for stillness and a place for joy, and you can’t help but be fulfilled. Thank you.
Class of 2017, as you continue your journey, remember that you have the power to choose who you are and what you believe. I hope, for you, that you choose faith, whatever that means to you. Embrace wherever your path leads you with an open mind, an open heart, a place for stillness and a place for joy, and you can’t help but be fulfilled. Thank you.
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