Opinion : The powerful prayer hidden in \'Pomp and Circumstance\'

To the graduates of the Vinton-Shellsburg Class of 2015, and those who will celebrate with them today – and to those from Center Point-Urbana, Western Dubuque and any other place where the empty seats in gyms or auditoriums sit as stark reminders of the unimaginable horrors a community has suffered and survived:

You deserve a graduation message more personal than “Two roads diverged in the woods,” more relevant than “Be the very best version of yourself” and more candid about the scars your crises have left than any of those overused graduation quotations.

You deserve a blessing, a prayer, a song – something that honors the strength you have shown and the courage it took to make it to this place.

There is such a message for you – and for decades it has waited, hidden in a part of virtually every high school and college graduation.

That message is: May the strength you have gained through your struggles increase, with the help of God.

“Pomp and Circumstance,” the song played at graduations for more than one century, has words, although hardly anyone ever sings them and most people don’t even know them.

The final two lines of that song (I hope you will remember the music of the last graduation you attended, and hear the tune in your head as you read the words) are:

God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet

God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet

Two Englishmen, composer Sir Edward Elgar and lyricist/poet A.C. Benson – both of whom had more than their share of challenges – wrote the song for the coronation of King Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria.

After Victoria’s death in 1901, the British nation mourned as never before. She had been their monarch since she turned 18, and her reign included some of England’s greatest achievements. It was also Queen Victoria –  who had lost her beloved husband, Prince Albert, four years earlier –  who wrote one of the most beautiful sympathy letters of the 19th Century:

“Though a Stranger to you I cannot remain silent when so terrible a calamity has fallen upon you I earnestly pray that you may be supported by Him to whom Alone the sorely stricken can look for comfort, in this hour of heavy affliction,” she wrote to Mary Lincoln in April, 1865.

When Edward VII was planning the official ceremonies as he planned to take Victoria’s place, he asked Elgar and Benson to write something appropriate. Their long work is entitled “Coronation Ode,” although the final part, formally called “Land of Hope and Glory” is the part we recognize as a graduation march.

The song urges the people of Great Britain to be strong, to love, to have faith, and to embrace wisdom, truth and forgiveness. It calls on them to be the best people, to make the best choices, possible.

The custom of playing this song at American graduations began when they played it at Yale when Elgar received an honorary degree. It quickly spread to other colleges, and then to high schools almost everywhere.

And today, they will play that song again at the graduation you attend. But now, you know what it means.

My hope, my prayer for you, today, is also contained in those nine beautiful words: May God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.

This prayer is for you all: For those who have survived the unimaginable series of tragedies. For my new friends I met for the first time at funerals, and my old friends whom I saw way too many times where people gathered to share the deepest of heartaches. For those who lost coaches, classmates, best friends, siblings, children, cousins and soulmates. For those who have faced and fought through struggles that didn’t make the news – trials nobody even noticed you facing.

Many of you have heard the words of another monarch throughout the year. It was King David who – looking back on his days tending sheep in the wilderness – who wrote “The Lord is my Shepherd” and “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," – words we often hear at funerals.

David, too understood the kind of pain we have felt in the past year. As a young man, he lost his best friend in tragic circumstances; he spent years hiding from an enemy, in fear of his life, and at times all of those around him wondered if they had made a mistake by thinking he really could ever be their king.

When David became King of Israel, he wrote about the trials he encountered along his journey from the pasture to the Palace. While you can find many of them in the Book of Psalms, this line is among my favorites because it includes David’s view of what God says about him: “Because he seeks me I shall save him; I shall strengthen him, because he knows my Name (Ps. 91:14, Aramaic Bible in Plain English).”

So today, as you hear the familiar notes of that march with a somber but confident melody which acknowledges an epic loss while also offering hope for the future, I hope that you too will find comfort and hope. And for all of you who are now way too familiar with tragedy, I hope and pray that from this day forward, each of you will proceed in glorious triumph.

Perhaps that triumph will be something that countless people see; perhaps it will be something only you will ever know – like the small, but beautiful little showy orchid that, despite being surrounded by giant oaks and intimidating thorns, tenaciously holds on to its tiny parcel of soil and quietly inspires me each spring. 

Whatever your story has been – or whatever you hope it will be – let those nine words of the graduation march give you faith in your future and the determination to make it mighty.