Thank you all for inviting me to participate in Torch Night.

I am deeply honored to be
here.
I understand that yall have planted a tree on campus as a gift to the community. It
is a good and fitting gesture, especially as today is Arbor Day. As you go forth from
this place your legacy will be manifest in our memories, our archives, our record
books. And, as this tree grows and flowers and enriches our landscape, it will stand
as a living, breathing bond that unites all of you to each other and to this special,
sacred space as a testament to the contemplation, study, and action that have
defined your time here.
Trees are awesome things. And, I want to talk about trees. But, before I get to trees I
want to talk about intellectual habits and the power of texts, of the written word,
and then circle back to trees.
Everyone has unique intellectual habits. In my study and teaching, I engage the
world through language, that slippery system of symbols and meaning, that
endlessly mutable and powerful medium in which we record and share poetry,
narrative, philosophy, and argument. The language used by a poet or storyteller
might seem, and truly often is, very different from the language used by a
philosopher or a rhetorician. But all careful, thoughtful expression comes from the
same place, a place of curiosity and wonder. As Thomas Aquinas notes in his
commentaries on Aristotles Metaphysics, poetry and philosophy have the same
origin: the myths with which the poets deal are composed of wonders, and the
philosophers themselves were moved to philosophize as a result of wonder
Throughout my life, texts have been the medium through which I experience joy,
awe, inspiration, and curiosity. As maps to the mysterious, texts of all kinds pull me

in, the stacks of books and tilting piles of paper that crowd my office drive my sense
of curiosity, feed my desire to experience wonder, and awaken the joy that comes
from puzzling out the contours of the unknowable.
But, while I dont think its possible to read too much or to read too broadly, I must
admit that at times our minds, our bodies, and our souls need other forms of
stimulation and sustenance. And it is these sensory experiences that can both
awaken wonder and stimulate a sense of security which allow us to have the
confidence to chase that wonder.
My desk is positioned so that my line of site can drift past my books and out the
window, past the roof of this chapel, to take in the trees and fields that sit on the
southern edge of our campus. And as the academic year unfolds I can watch the
skies above them move and shift as summer ends; watch the trees erupt in
autumnal brilliance of orange and gold only to shudder and become the dark
tangled knots that reach from the now dun earth to the grey steel of our winter
skies.
But, then, when all seems darkest, and the earth seems to close up on itself, I watch
the skies break and the clouds scatter to the horizon. And, we reach spring, that
time of regeneration and transition. Spring, the season of rains, the season which
e.e. cummings called mudluscious and puddlewonderful. Spring, this joyous
season in which we prepare to reset the cycle of our academic lives and anticipate
the end of one year and the onset of new adventures. Today I sat in my office and
watched the trees that line the walkways in front of Sacred Heat, the trees in front
of the chapel. I watched them as they slowly awakened and open, tinting the sky
pink, white, and green.

I had the great fortune to grow up in a set of houses that had been in my family for
four generations. My mothers parents lived next door to us and there were no
fences between the two houses and one garden spread across both yards, binding
our houses into a single home space. This sprawling garden was dominated,
defined, by six mighty oak trees. While the smallests trunk had a diameter of two
feet the others were four or five feet across at their widest point, their strong,
powerful trunks unfolding into tangles of rugged branches, thick with leaves and
gluttonous with acorns, stitching together a canopy that spread across both yards.
Their roots spread out at their base, reaching into the ground, pushing aside earth
and stone. Careful and patient gardeners, my great-grandmother and my father had
populated the understory with dogwoods and cherries, boxwoods and azaleas, trees
and shrubs that thrived in the shade of the oak canopy, cradled in the nooks of the
roots.
My earliest memories are of that yard, and it was that yard that defined home.
Home was the place that was protected by the sheltering canopy of those trees,
where azalea blossoms brightened the cool and shady understory. Home was the
earth that coiled and buckled above those labyrinthine roots, where tidy boxwoods
gave structure to a wild terrain. Home was the earthy smell of fallen leaves and the
tannic sap of acorns stuck to your fingers. It was there that I first experienced the
sensory power of the natural world. It was there that I first felt the warm embrace of
home. It was there that I first experienced wonder yet also felt safe enough to step
into the unfamiliar and grapple with the unknown, the mysterious, the wonder that,
Aquinas reminds us, is at the core of poetry and philosophy.
And now, as an adult, when I sit in my office, surrounded by language, grappling
with poetry and narrative and rhetoric and philosophy, I reach back to that feeling of

home and draw on it to sustain my soul and my body. I stretch my mind back to that
feeling of wonder, of mystery, and it reawakens my curious mind and sustains me
as I return to my work, my study.
Now, those trees meant a whole lot to me. I think they were pretty awesome. But, I
want to conclude by offering some thoughts on the ways trees can inspire and guide
all of you as you go forth. As I noted at the outset, the tree planted by your class will
be a long-lived symbol of your connection to this place. But, we can say more about
this tree than simply noting that, like this tree, you are rooted here.
Trees are slow-growing plants that begin as small seeds or nuts. It is with great
patience and consistency that they become the towering, powerful anchors of our
landscape. And, though slow moving, trees are powerful and over time remake their
world. Im sure weve all walked down a sidewalk or path that has slowly buckled as
the roots of a tree stretched and reached through the earth. Like trees, we can only
reach our full strength and have our greatest impact if we patiently and steadily
work towards our goals. In The Dialogue, Catherine of Siena, whose feast we
celebrate today, reminds us that nothing great is ever achieved without much
enduring. An acorn can only become an oak and remake the earth through
centuries of growth. And, our achievements can only happen through diligent, hard
work.
And, though they can be powerful presences in our landscapes, trees do not live in
isolation. The oaks of my home provided a habitat for shrubs and smaller trees. And,
their branches provided nesting sites for birds and squirrels. And, of course, they
were the defining feature of our human home. And though a single tree is beautiful,
it is in copses and forests that trees reach their ultimate potential. In a stand of

woods or a deep forest, multiple species of trees live in symbiosis and shelter and
strengthen each other and their environment. They reach together to form
canopies, crafting homes for other plants and species. Like trees, we might be
beautiful and powerful as individuals. But it is only with a deep, muscular empathy
and a commitment to community and collaboration that we can truly thrive.
Thank you.