{"id":163,"date":"2010-12-18T15:22:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T20:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/?p=163"},"modified":"2025-05-27T14:15:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T19:15:28","slug":"the-magic-of-transformation-leads-to-the-miracle-of-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/the-magic-of-transformation-leads-to-the-miracle-of-community\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic of Transformation Leads to the Miracle of Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>Get ready for an Imagination Celebration!<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

This morning I had the honor of sending\u00a0more than 150 Mount Mary College<\/a> graduates into the community with a commencement address. I can’t tell you how amazing and surprising it was to find myself on that stage.\u00a0 It might surprise a few of you — although certainly not all — to learn I was a bit of a wild child when I\u00a0entered college\u00a0and so my mother insisted I\u00a0attend Mount Mary College where I\u00a0spoke today. \u00a0Without the nurturing and patient faculty, staff and administration at Mount Mary, I doubt I would have graduated from college and I may never have become a writer.\u00a0Community, whether\u00a0family, friends, fellow writers,\u00a0or schools,\u00a0can create miracles.\u00a0That’s what\u00a0I spoke about today.\u00a0Here is\u00a0what I said:<\/p>\n

December 2010\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Good morning. Thank you for this honor to speak to this community, to you President Schwalbach, and to trustees, \u00a0administrators, colleagues, graduates and guests.<\/p>\n

So. Here you are.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re really, really here! Congratulations, Graduates!<\/p>\n

This means you\u2019ve navigated another program, or perhaps another profession, or another level of academia. If your name appears on your diploma, you\u2019ve turned in all your research papers, finished one last clinical or lab and completed that final presentation \u2013 at least that final presentation for this leg of your journey.<\/p>\n

Before this coming year is out, some of you will find yourselves in unimaginable places. You\u2019ll find new jobs, perhaps add to your families, or return to higher education; many will pilot careers within your communities. And when you reach out to others, the magic of your own transformation will lead to the miracle of community.<\/p>\n

President Schwalbach declared this year\u2019s theme as Community.\u00a0 This theme dovetails perfectly with the transformative vision of this college\u2014to educate women \u2013 and men and<\/em> women in the nursing and graduate programs \u2013 to change the world. It\u2019s a perfect theme for my own belief that we each need to go out, flaws and all, to make the world a better place than we found it.<\/p>\n

In your journey at Mount Mary, you may have found magic in transformation. Transformative elements grace so many areas of our lives through what we\u2019re learning and applying already. In my own life as a writer and teacher, the qualities of transformation permit me to immerse myself in the creative process — to find redemption, humor, strength and hope. It allows me to see cautionary tales in such flawed heroes as writer Amy Tan<\/a>, who struggled in her relationship with her mother and her culture, and rock star Janis Joplin<\/a>, both whose lives I\u2019ve written about.<\/p>\n

My goal as a teacher is always to help you discover the transformative elements of creative spirit. Simply, this means I help students discover what rocks their writing world.<\/p>\n

As I look around this room, I can see how the transformative magic of your education might have blessed a student teacher with the chance to observe understanding on a child\u2019s face. Transformative insights might have inspired a nurse to console a frightened patient. For some, transformation may have come through travel to distant countries and discovering connected lives in new customs.<\/p>\n

In each case, our hearts and knowledge — put to work in the community — create change that will generate a ripple of good. In Africa, this is the philosophy of Ubuntu<\/span>, a philosophy my son\u2019s friend Scottie explained means \u201cmy humanity is tied<\/span> to yours.\u201d So we are one. All humanity is connected.<\/p>\n

Many years ago my own call to community began here at Mount Mary. One moment I recall was especially transformative \u2013 when I served as a student editor for the Mount Mary College newspaper, the paper\u2019s office was next door to the sculpture room.\u00a0 Late at night, while I read and revised copy, I could hear the tap<\/em>, tap<\/em> of a chisel as it was pounded into wood. This was Sr. Regina who spent long nights creating wood sculptures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph that can be seen on altars all over the world. She tapped out a prayer for her students each time the chisel hit wood. I began to listen for the sound of her work, grateful for the prayer being sent out for me and others. Sometimes I found myself praying silently with her. For peace. For understanding. For community.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maybe that was when I first discovered that the magic of transformation leads to the miracle of community.<\/p>\n

I began to live my ideals, speaking out for social justice especially education for women and children, and writing to make flawed heroes heard so that their stories can change the way we see. Sometimes my ideas make others think I\u2019m the madwoman in the room, but there\u2019s a joyful hope that comes with working for good change.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, I\u2019m not the first to have discovered this. A look around the world shows many others living the miracle.\u00a0 It inspired Edwina Gately <\/a>who spoke at Mount Mary\u2019s fall symposium on social justice, to bring marginalized people off the streets so she can help them develop self-esteem and new job skills.<\/p>\n

Greg Mortenson <\/a>a man who failed to climb K2, the most tortuous mountain in Pakistan, promised to build a school in the small village of Korphe, where he had been saved and healed. People thought he was attempting the impossible, He was mad. Insane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He says of what he does: “What we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”\u00a0 He has constructed more than 50 schools in rural regions while also making women\u2019s education possible in that country. His work has been chronicled in the popular book Three Cups of Tea\u2026.
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A request for examples of miracle of community brought amazing stories. A Wisconsin friend and farming writer said that whenever a farmer dies, members of her community show up with an outpouring of love to combine<\/span> the corn, fix a fence or barn roof, or to makes meals and help families heal their grief.<\/p>\n

Alum, Nicole Jenks May, wrote of Milwaukee\u2019s St. Josaphat\u2019s Basilica<\/a>, with the gold domes that gleam at sunset, as \u201ca tangible example of what poor Polish workers could do, when banded together, giving their time and talents and saving money to buy a train car of materials here and there. That church,\u201d she wrote, \u201cis definitely a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sister Joanne Poehlman told how this miracle is lived within the SSND <\/a>community. She wrote, \u201cLife in our community is a giving and a receiving of love and respect, a living together in trust, openness, sincerity, and forgiveness.\u201d\u00a0 I have every faith that her prayers and the prayers of the School Sisters of Notre Dame have helped many to create miracles in community.<\/p>\n

We have alums and friends from Mount Mary who have opened clinics in Milwaukee for the poor, worked with the homeless and victims of violence, advocated for better foster care and adoption; they have taught and entertained communities with song and story and used their creative talents as activists for change and to heal.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s your turn. You have been given the magic of transformation and now you get to create the miracle of community. There\u2019s work to be done. But, don\u2019t forget to play too. Make this journey a joyful, blessed journey. To quote writer Neil Gaiman\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0graduate blessing: \u201cMay your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”<\/p>\n

And remember as you work and play and create, that to do so in community will lead to that miracle of Ubuntu. My humanity is tied<\/span> to yours. Our humanity is connected always.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get ready for an Imagination Celebration! This morning I had the honor of sending\u00a0more than 150 Mount Mary College graduates into the community with a commencement address. I can’t tell you how amazing and surprising it was to find myself on that stage.\u00a0 It might surprise a few of you — although certainly not all … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1375,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/1375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}