Living the Christian Life in the Public Square

Ave Maria School of Law -Inaugural Commencement Exercises ^ | May 18, 2003 | The Honorable Samuel Dale Brownback

[Ed Current]

Thank you very much Dean. It’s a great honor and privilege for me to be able to join you today and particularly to be the first commencement speaker. I tell you I do not feel qualified given who you have on this stage to be the commencement speaker. You have other people that could speak far more eloquently and better about any number of topics than I could. But I guess it’s a little bit—I feel a bit like the mule in the Kentucky Derby—I don’t know that I’m going to win the contest but the company is sure nice that I’m keeping. And this is quite a crew that’s here. Also, I’m very honored to be here just at the first commencement exercise. I was sitting here and I remember hearing about the Ave Maria school starting, the Law School starting and it was sending some shivers in the elite structure in Washington. What are these guys doing? Where are they going? And I was sitting there cheering, thinking I think I know where they’re going and we need it. And we need you.

And it’s been a humble beginning for you but I think that’s also good company. Any time you can start humbly, it seems to me all the great things of mankind have started humbly. Jesus was born in a barn, his twelve disciples afterward, scared stiff. Any number of things that have started and been profound, even in this country. The pilgrims, when they landed at Plymouth Rock and settled there, hardly would have been seen as an auspicious start to a country that is the size and scale of ours, that today, I would argue, is the most powerful nation in the history of humanity. And yet I don’t think the pilgrims at that time could probably physically have seen that but I think they saw it spiritually at the time. So a humble beginning is a good thing. A humble beginning at this law school, as Chris was pointing out, that you came here before there was a building or a school and you accepted it. I thought that was both a great leap of faith and a good humble start to which I commend the Law School class.

Chris, in your statement it was beautiful and I don’t know that I could really add anything to what you and the Dean have already articulated. Yet, in the faithful tradition of the Senate, I’ll go ahead and speak anyway. One sage in the Senate said that I believe everything in this debate has already been said but not everybody has said it yet. So we go ahead and speak. That’s democracy as we have it. In the House they vote, in the Senate we talk. So that’s what I get the honor of being able to do today.

We certainly need you in this graduating class. As I was coming up here thinking about you and I thought about all the places we need you. We need you in this country in the courtrooms and in the law firms and in legislative bodies, in policy making. We also need you in Uzbekistan and Egypt fighting for religious freedom and human rights and the dignity of the individual. We need you in China, we need you in India, we need you in so many places. There is no shortage of places that we need you, to fight for things, to fight for the dignity of the human individual against sex trafficking, to fight for the freedom and fair treatment of people who work. We need you. We need you. And as Chris commented about St. Thomas More being the patron saint of politicians and lawyers, two professions that desperately need a patron saint, I might add, he taught that man cannot be separated from God, nor politics from morality. And it seems as if you blended those and realized that truth here today.

It is an honor for me to be here and it is an honor for you to be here in this first graduating class that is going to touch so many other people across this country and across the world. I am thankful for that opportunity to be here as I am sure you are as well. And I have to say all the glory goes to God for me to be here and receive this award. I certainly didn’t do anything to be here other than to try to somewhat be faithful. I am thankful for the many experiences that God has put me through. In raising me on a pig farm in eastern Kansas, to letting me to experience cancer in 1995. And it was that experience I guess most of all that probably let me be here today. Because, prior to that, I was pretty much a standard how-far-can-I-climb politician. And wanting to get to the top for I guess no other reason than it’s there. But I just wanted to be there. But something about when you hear those words "you have cancer," that’s something that grabs you at that moment and it tells you that there’s an end to the physical existence here and it may come sooner than you want it to. And I deem it a great, great privilege and a great, great blessing that God let me stare at the end of life and work back from that at a relatively early age to be able to see that what I was pursuing at that time was not something that was going to last. And that while I might achieve a position, I was not going to do anything that was lasting, that I was pursuing things that just weren’t worthwhile. And it caused a radical departure and a radical change.

I’m still a long way from any sort of qualification of being moving on to perfection, but I guess I feel like now I can see what things really last, and it’s generally the things you can’t see that last. And it’s things when you touch the heart and when you touch the soul of another individual that last. And it’s those things of beauty that you may never be recognized for, but you know when you’ve helped and you’ve touched somebody else. And this country needs people that focus on the soul and to try to help the soul and to cause the soul to soar, here in this country and around the world. And that’s what we desperately need. And we’re so often, we’re playing, we’re both a physical entity and a spiritual entity, and we so often just play to that physical entity and say we want to meet your needs here. And we should meet people’s needs here. But in a policy debate or in a courtroom or anywhere you can play to that physical nature of the individual or you can play to their soul, and you can speak to either one of them. And let me submit to you that when you talk to their soul, when you encourage and when you edge it along, you’ve really moved the world. And you’ve moved something of giant nature. And when you’ve touched something physical, you’ve probably done something good that is helpful for you, maybe for somebody else, and there’s many ways we can help people there as well. But we need to engage the soul of this country and the soul again.

And you think about the great statements that have recently been made by statesmen of this country, it’s all something for somebody else, generally, in the nature of the statement. I mean, John Kennedy’s great line of "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" isn’t a selfish statement, it’s about serving others. Or when he goes to, and he says, "Ich bin ein Berliner," that isn’t about being in a, helping somebody in America, that’s about helping liberty and freedom. Or Ronald Reagan, standing in front of the wall, saying, "Mr. Gorbachev bring down this wall." Doesn’t something in you just stir when you hear those phrases? And yet it is not something that is delivered just to you. It’s something of where you’re delivering liberty to somebody else and a help and a touching of the soul that lifts it and causes it to soar. And that’s what we need more of. And that’s what we need to pursue. And that’s what the greatness of this country can do at this point in time.

We have been given so much. And to whom much is given, much is expected. We are the largest economy in the world, about a ten trillion dollar annual economy. You have to take ninety countries in the world, ninety, the bottom ninety, and add up their economies to equal the size of the U.S. economy. We’re about a third of the military spending, the next largest is one-sixth our size. We’re about forty percent of the R and D budget for the world, between the U.S. public and private sector—forty percent of the research and development budget. To whom much is given, much is expected. We really must help out others and stand for the dignity of the individual, wherever that individual is, and fight for their freedom and fight for their liberty, wherever that is. Because when any one of us is not free, none of us are free. And we have the power to do it, and we can do it. And we will be great as long as we’re a good country, but if we lose that fundamental goodness, we will lose the fundamental greatness of America. And you can help us do it. It doesn’t take a majority in God’s way of doing things – it takes a remnant. And you can do it. And you can get it done. It is our calling and it is what we are to do. It is in serving that we really succeed. It is in giving that we really experience joy. And you can help us get back on that right path.

We have a culture to deal with that’s in difficulty, but a culture that I think is in movement now as well. I’m very excited about where we are at this point and stage of our country’s history. I think we’ve come up to the edge of walking out from underneath really, a very strong, protective hand of God, and instead now are coming back and really starting to embrace the fundamentals of our motto, which is "In God We Trust." That’s enshrined above the doorway, the main doorway coming into the United States Senate. And I remember presiding one day in the United States Senate, a place where you get to hear people talk and talk and talk, where Harry Truman used to write letters back to Bess while he was presiding saying that he’s here hearing somebody speak about something they know nothing about again. And I was sitting there presiding and not particularly listening to the speaker at that time, maybe I should have been, but I was looking at that and I saw that symbol, I saw those words "In God We Trust" above the main mantel and the main door walking into the United States Senate, and the thought hit me at that moment—is it still true? Is it still true? Do we still—is "In God We Trust" still the motto of the land? And it is.

And it’s coming back more and more. And all you have to do is hear some of the stories of people that are coming back from war, from the twin towers that were hit in New York. I was talking with a father last night that lost a son in the Iraq war, a father from Kansas still having great difficulty dealing with it. Two weeks before he left, and this was in the newspaper, so I can say it, two weeks before he left his son had a dream and in his dream he was met by a friend of his who had died. He said, "Jake, it’s time for you and I to go to God." And it was an area of great comfort to his Dad. When the twin towers fell there was a police officer that was trapped under twenty feet of rubble and he was trapped there for a day. And this story was in USA. Today, and he didn’t know if he was ever going to be able to make it out. And he’s trapped and he’s pinned there and he’s getting hungry and he’s thirsty and he doesn’t know if he was going to die. And in this, and this was in USA. Today, he sees Jesus come to him, with water, from a lake behind him. And it gave him strength to struggle and to yell for help and he made it out. "In God We Trust." Yes, and He is here with us and He is constantly with us, and it’s how we change the culture.

We must participate in the public life. We must work to participate in the public life. We need you, we need this graduating class and, with your dedicated work, we can change the world. One of the great pleasures I’ve had in the United States Senate was to host Mother Theresa receive the Congressional Gold Medal. And she received it about eight months before she died. She came to us, flew over from Calcutta, and came to us and was with us for about forty-five minutes and very frail at that point in time. And I at that point in time I had not joined the Catholic Church and recently I have. She came to us and I was hosting her there and what she said most of the time was, "Pray for the sisters, pray for the sisters." And I thought at the time, I thought this was kind of a throw away line. Why would you say that, why don’t you ask us for something tough like a billion dollars. I’m thinking in legislative terms or in—but she was asking for the most powerful thing I could give her. And I ask it from you. Pray for us in Washington. Pray for the leaders of your country. It’s the most powerful thing that you can do. Pray for us. And I hope you, as a graduating class, will pray for each other as you move forward. As I mentioned, she was with us about forty-five minutes, and I went to take her out to her car and put her in. And so she was leaving and I was very excited about the moment and about being there but I also was a bit down at the end of it because she didn’t come out with one of those piercing one-liners that I’d heard and read about during her life. One-liners where she would say to people in America that we all have our Calcuttas, meaning we all have places we need to serve. Or she would talk about poverty in America, and there she was talking about the poverty of a lack of love. She talked about people in our nursing homes in America that had plenty of food and shelter and warmth but yet were constantly facing the door waiting for somebody to come in and give them a hug. She talked about poverty in America, a very dark type of poverty where people didn’t have the love they needed to share. And I was waiting for one of those lines and none of them came. And so, as I’m putting her in the car, I’m thinking that I caught a great saint but kind of on the downhill side. I’m from the Kansas area and I thought this is a little bit like when Joe Montana played for the Kansas City Chiefs. I mean, if any of you watch football, Joe Montana is great and even when he was with the Chiefs he was great but you could tell he was just on the downhill side of things. And the brilliance was still there but it was sporadic. And I put her in the car and she grabs my hand and she holds it and she stares me in the eye then and she says three words four times. At that moment, she grabs me and looks me in the eye and just says, "All for Jesus, all for Jesus, all for Jesus, all for Jesus." The door closed, she went away, and I thought, I just got the wisdom of the Universe that I was searching for.

It is in that fundamental recognition of who we are, and what we are, that we recognize truth and that we can serve and serve others and make America that shining city on a hill that those pilgrims in an early beginning saw. It’s in that serving that we truly live and that this class will excel. Thank you for allowing me to join you today. God bless you all.