Greetings from Parker J. Palmer (Class of 1961)

I wish I could be with you to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Carleton’s Religion Department and honor the extraordinary teachers and scholars who have made the department so vital. But the reason I cannot attend may be worth noting: as you celebrate, I will be working with three hundred fifty Episcopalians from around the country who are trying to strengthen the educational ministry of the Episcopal Church. Perhaps this is the kind of project that the Religion Department hopes some of its majors will get involved with after graduation. In any event, it’s not a bad gig for this 21^st century Quaker, given the bad blood between my 17^th century spiritual ancestors and the Anglicans of their time!

To keep the more recent historical record straight, I need to note that I did not major in religion at Carleton. I had a double major in sociology and philosophy, and I was blessed with superb teachers in both departments. And yet, when I reflect upon the lasting imprint that Carleton made upon my life, the people who come first and foremost to mind are three founding members of the Religion Department whom you honor today: Ian Barbour, David Maitland, and Bardwell Smith.

I could write many, many words about each of these great mentors, all of whom have become great friends to me as the years have gone by. But to keep this encomium from becoming book-length, I want to name three remarkable gifts that Ian, David and Bard hold in common, three gifts they gave so freely to me as they have to countless others who studied with them at Carleton.

First, they all extended warm personal hospitality to this first-generation college student who landed on campus in the fall of 1957 feeling fearful and out of place. They offered the comfort, and sometimes the consolation, of their homes and family lives, where I was able to start becoming more at home with myself. And as I was welcomed into these professors’ homes I was given the gift of meeting three remarkable women—Deane Barbour, Betsy Maitland and Charlotte Smith—who also became life-long friends and, in their own quiet ways, real mentors.

Ian, David and Bard also offered me deep intellectual hospitality, in the classroom and in countless extracurricular conversations. Somehow these three contemporary wise men made me feel that every question or idea I pursued was worthy of consideration, while at the same time helping me to see that my pursuit had a long way to go. I do not understand exactly how this paradox works, but I know that holding students within it is a key to intellectual growth. Ian, David and Bard gave me the gift of unconditional regard, never making me feel that I had to succeed to win their respect, while still surrounding me with a force-field that made me want to grow from within.

The third great gift I received from each of these mentors was the example of a life in which faith and reason danced together with grace, creativity and elegance. When I went to Berkeley to do a Ph.D. in the sociology of religion, I began meeting academics who purported to be studying religion, but did so driven by a cynicism that turned their would-be scholarship into a rather puerile exercise in dismissing and debunking the religious impulse. Often, as I listened to them hold forth, I found myself thinking, “I know people a lot smarter than you for whom there is no essential conflict between science and religion!” What I meant, of course, was that I had been taught by people who knew how to think “with their minds descended into their hearts” (to quote a fourth century theologian), people who have always kept their minds and hearts open to the vast mystery in which we are embedded, apprehending and appreciating it with all the faculties of understanding that human beings possess.

I spent last spring term as a visiting professor at Carleton. As I visited with Ian and Deane, Bard and Charlotte, and David (always remembering Betsy), one thought kept returning to me: “How incredibly lucky I was to spend four critical years of my young life living and learning with people of such remarkable quality.” I will never stop thanking the powers that be for bringing these great and good people into my life, and for giving me a place in theirs.