Commencement address to the class of 2198

I never would have dreamt to watch God's creation spring to life under my eyes, not to mention be entrusted to make it happen, but here I am, more than a century later, sharing whatever wisdom I gathered during this incredible journey with you.

We don't always understand the way we are brought to our purpose and only see it in retrospect, a frozen unchangeable story. We fashion our future from each moment; some decisions we make for ourselves and some are presented to us, they are presented and repeated as many times as needed for us to understand them.

If we are lucky we rise to the challenge but often the things we learn about our hearts in the process aren't easy to bear. Some people insist that hardship forges character, others profess that ugliness and indignity crush the human spirit. I will not comment on either theory since it is more important why character is forged.

We were so young when we arrived, so strong in our beliefs, so well prepared we thought we were ready for anything. We couldn't possibly anticipate what anything meant in this strange land and when the unexpected occurred, it always took us by surprise.

The most important lesson of our journey was the understanding that there is so much more to creation than the human mind can grasp and we shouldn't have taken for granted that which we believed to be true.

If your soul is unwavering, your soul will be tested, and tested again, and turned around, and tested unexpectedly again, ad infinitum. Don't squander your essence in this losing battle with deceit; truth, goodness and love never cause suffering.

Clean and mend the canvases of your lives and learn to see the wishes that always seem to elude you as the most important threads. Watch the world work miracles around you and know that nothing is impossible in the sight of God.

Our greatest achievements often came in the form of crisis and as we fought for our existence we cut new paths forward for your generation; the challenges we surmounted became the foundation of your work. We mirror our times but are always too close to our tasks to see their significance.

Be happy, beloved, keep your dreams alive, try the impossible, dare to change the world! Never forget that you are the pieces that make up the puzzle of history.

Love,

Joachima

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About the author

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www.francisrosenfeld.com

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Generations

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