Looking Backward, Living Forward Founder’s Day

Mercer University February 3, 2016 By R. Kirby Godsey

Founder’s Day reminds me that our human journeys are born mostly of dreams. The stuff of dreams is more hope than certainty, more hints of what might be possible than assurances of what is to be. On a cold, wintry day in January,1833, 39 students huddled together in two rough-hewn log cabins on a remote red clay farm in Greene County. Conditions were spartan. No heat. No running water. No electricity, only candles to break the darkness. Students had to bring their own bedding and their own candles. The fitness center was a field to be cultivated with hoes and plows and thick stands of timber to be harvested with axes and mauls. In this young America, Mercer University was a bold venture. It was mostly a dream. Today, we awaken to new conditions. Hot coffee and bagels greet the morning. Fitness centers with running tracks and swimming pools and free weights to curb our dietary excesses. But we are still dreaming. So the story of

1 Founder’s Day is how we got from 39 students in two rough- hewn log cabins to a comprehensive research university with almost 10,000 students anchored in three cities. The place of dreams is important. Penfield is the name. It is a modest place. Many of you have been there. It was named for Josiah Penfield, a simple jeweler in Savannah. He never went to that red clay farm, but he believed so deeply in education that he inspired Jesse Mercer and Adiel Sherwood to act on their daring idea of building a college. So, they named the ground where they built it Penfield. Today, Penfield is a rural, almost irrelevant, village where there remains a pristine, elegant chapel. Jesse Mercer himself often presided there. It is our homeplace. Little more than ten years ago, on December 2, 2005, the annual meeting of Mercer’s Board took place in Penfield. It was next to my last meeting with the Board as President. The Board had not met there since 1870. In this magnificent historic chapel, the Trustees gathered, just as the original Board gathered when it was chaired by Jesse Mercer. That December day in 2005 was an emotional moment. For on that day, I recommended and the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to sever the 172 year relationship with the Georgia Baptist Convention in the very place where it began.

2 And later on that same day, that same Board that had just redefined in dramatic fashion what it meant for Mercer to be a University, elected my successor, the 18th president of Mercer University, President William Underwood. It was a day in which place mattered. Bill Underwood will likely never forget that place. Nor will I. In 1871, Mercer moved away from that rural, wooded terrain to the prominent city of Macon. The world was different in Macon. We moved from a land that was isolated to one of Georgia’s leading urban centers. Places matter. Moving to the city signaled more than a change of place. It also signaled a change of Mercer’s future forever with the emergence of law and medicine and engineering and business and music and more, as well as a tradition of civic engagement and urban renaissance. The places of Mercer--Penfield, Macon, Atlanta, Savannah, Columbus. Do not ever underestimate the power of place in your life. Places frame your history. In that historic place, this University began with a simple idea. Tuck this truth away: Ideas shape the world and ideas will change your life. Every institution has what I call a generative idea. I mean by that that there must be a

3 generative force that compels us to undertake some bold venture. The generative idea of Mercer University was framed by Jesse Mercer in these words: “You cannot have anything to say unless you have first learned something.” If you think about it, that is a radical notion. My, if the religious class or the political class could hear those words. There are a lot of people talking who have not learned anything to say. There was far greater evidence that this enterprise, called Mercer would fail rather than succeed. The passion and presence and relentless devotion of a small cadre of people turned their imagination into a University. Open the Mercer’s history wherever you like. It is always the story of people, of people’s ideas, of people’s undaunted courage to change the way things have been. I think of Abram Simons, among Jesse Mercer’s closest friends. Simons never planned to be a part of Jesse’s dreams. He was a wealthy Jewish merchant. To be plain, he made his living running pubs. In 1820, Simons died, leaving his widow, Nancy, to inherit his considerable wealth. After Jesse Mercer’s wife, Sabrina, died some years later, Jesse married widow Nancy and following Nancy’s death, Jesse Mercer inherited that Jewish liquor dealer’s money.

4 He used it, in large measure, to undergird the beginning of this University. So, if you want to know how Mercer got started, it was from the wealth of a whiskey-pouring Jewish liquor dealer. Our allies often can come from strange quarters. In honor of Mercer’s unexpected ally, I think President Underwood ought to establish a tavern across the street over here and call it Simon’s pub. Mercer’s story includes the stories of some remarkable people. I think of Griffin Bell who served on the U. S. Court of Appeals, appointed by President Carter to serve as Attorney General. I spoke of Jesse Mercer. He was among the most famous preachers in America. He received an honorary doctorate from Brown University and wrote the religious liberty clause of the Georgia constitution. I think of William Tryon, one of those original 39 students. He was dispatched by Jesse Mercer himself with $2,000 to go to Texas to start an up and coming little school that we know today as Baylor University. I think of Ferrol Sams, a 1942 graduate, a legendary physician, who wrote Whisper of the River, a morally compelling story of Porter Osborne’s life at Willingham University named for this building.

5 I think of Joe Hendricks, whose life we celebrated recently. He was a historic community statesman and the moral compass for an entire generation of college students and colleagues. I think of William Augustus Bootle who served as Dean of our Law School and became federal judge for the Middle District of Georgia and, from that bench, ordered the integration of the University of Georgia with the admission of Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes. I could go on – Carl Vinson, Professor John Freeman, Eugene Stetson, Louie Newton, William Heard Kilpatrick. Scores of luminaries scroll across the ticker-tape of Mercer’s history. Yet, the greatest impact on our history does not belong there. It belongs to the countless, unnamed women and men who leave these classrooms, shedding light in the darkest corners of our world. Often unnoticed, they are healing the sick and teaching the young. They are opening new frontiers in science and business, shepherding people of faith and lifting up the arms of justice across our land. Mercer’s story is the story of people. It is the story of people whose passion and imagination, whose convictions and courage have changed the world. The sweep of Mercer’s history is breathtaking.

6 But, be sure of this: Looking back will never be enough. Here on Founder’s Day, if you look back with clear eyes, you will be inspired and challenged. But, amidst the inspiration and the challenge, I also stand to remind you this morning that you can only live forward. It is remarkable how many of us spend so much time looking back over our shoulders, preoccupied with some road not taken, immobilized by some disappointment, harboring some hurt. We spend far too much time grieving over some defeat, brooding over some unfairness, resenting some hateful remark. You can mark this down. Life in the rear view mirror is an illusion. Life is linear. Living forward means that we cannot live on yesterday’s successes and we cannot be paralyzed by yesterday’s failures. We cannot become too enamored by yesterday’s victories, or shackled to yesterday’s regrets. Nor should we become trapped by other people’s expectations. You cannot live out somebody else’s script for your life. Coming to a University is all about gaining the insight and the understanding and the courage to write your own life script. Insight, understanding, courage - - that is the journey you are on. There are new voices to hear, new ideas to conceive, new horizons to envision.

7 Three treasures that lie deep within the heritage of this University can light your path. The first treasure is freedom. Before our founders believed in education and “book learning,” they believed in freedom. They believed in the freedom to believe and the freedom to disbelieve. They believed that only freedom could unleash our inner power. From this unvarnished devotion to freedom, there inevitably flowed a longing to learn, to explore, to discover, to know more. It was that unbridled yearning that brought us from a cold, wintry day in Penfield to a warm wintry morning here in Willingham. It was a yearning, that once it was loosed over 180 years ago, can never be chained again. That yearning can never be shut down by religious orthodoxy. It cannot be shut down by scientific models or cultural biases. Embracing freedom, whether in Tehran, or Beijing, or Macon, Georgia, embracing freedom will set your soul on fire. I was visited once by a delegation of Baptist preachers who wanted to investigate the University’s Christianity department and the Mercer University Press for the heresies that they were teaching and publishing. They had a whole satchel of books to bolster their case. I ushered them into

8 the Board Room and listened patiently. Now, you should understand that I had no doubt that we were indeed teaching and publishing heresy. After listening to their assaults until they finally grew quiet, I remember sitting in silence and looking at those gentlemen. Then, I said to our visitors that when it comes to investigating our faculty or raising questions about the books we publish that when they had talked to me, they had talked to the last person they were going to talk to at Mercer University. If we are to be a University, I believe freedom must always trump orthodoxy. But I should say that it wasn’t always free thinking academics and heretical books that got us into trouble with the Baptists. Before most of you were born, Mercer was identified one year by Playboy magazine as the #9 party school in the nation. Wow! What an honor. Some of your parents were wearing T-shirts proclaiming, “isn’t it fine to be #9.” Sure enough, the next issue of Playboy came out with pages of scantily clad coeds from the top ten schools, including Mercer. You guessed it. The sun did not set before my office was besieged by calls of outrage, demanding the expulsion of these students. Of course, I said “no.” A bit exasperated, I said to one preacher, “you go back and take care of your pulpit” and I will take care of the “University.” I

9 was always a bit curious, however, why so many Baptist preachers were reading Playboy. Freedom is a powerful treasure, but freedom alone will not be enough. We need to reach out and also lay claim to the power of thought. Freedom without thought will always lead you to a dead end. The chief cause of tragedy and evil in our world is ignorance. The chief threat to a civilized future is ignorance. Religious fundamentalism and political fundamentalism are forms of ignorance. The violence of drug abuse and sexual abuse and ethnic abuse is born of ignorance. A few years back, we commissioned a statue of Jesse Mercer seated out here on the quadrangle. If you will go out there when it is quiet and sit really close to him and listen intently, he will whisper in your ear. And this is what he will say, “Keep learning”. Keep learning. That is the most transforming word you can hear from Father Mercer. Keep learning. The character of every decision you make, every action you take, every relationship you form will be shaped by whether you keep learning. The broad consensus of scientific thought seems to be that the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago. Earth

10 came along about 10 billion years later. As for you and me, we just arrived. We haven’t even unpacked our bags. In our infancy, we are trying to cobble together a fragile world order. Fragile indeed. We have not yet even learned to stop killing one another. Unthinkable brutality is commonplace. We have to begin to push back the boundaries of ignorance and our staggering inhumanity toward one another. To do so, we have to claim the power of human intelligence. Take up that challenge. Do not sanctify ignorance or intellectual laziness with affirmations of belief. Holy ignorance is still ignorance. We have to bind together freedom with thought. If we want to live well as we live forward, we should claim one other treasure from our Mercer founders. We must find a way to nurture the human spirit. Underscore this word: Mercer’s soul belongs to the enduring struggle to bring together the human intellect with the sanctity of the human spirit. It was that struggle that led Mercer to integrate its student body and faculty before any other private college or university in Georgia. It was that struggle that fostered the wisdom to offer university benefits to the partners of gays and lesbians. It was that struggle that inspired the creation of Mercer on Mission. I believe that bringing together

11 intellectual discipline and moral courage defines the very soul of Mercer University. Jesse Mercer described it in language that sounds quaint to our ears. He called it “pious intelligence.” We have long since abandoned the word “piety.” Perhaps it is a shame. Because, today we need moral discernment more than ever before. Spreading freedom around the world, nurturing thought and a disciplined intellect as antidotes for ignorance are critical, but, even so, they will not cure our ills. Somewhere along our way, we must learn a new lesson. We must learn to relate to one another with integrity and respect. We must learn to live as people of compassion and grace. We must learn to lift people up, instead of putting people down. Think about it. Our human life together cannot be about getting even. You will not live long enough to get even. You must learn to let go of crippling episodes of bitterness and hatred and disrespect. Otherwise, in the final analysis, you will find yourself intellectually bankrupt and morally stranded. On this Founder’s Day, look back. You can see it. We have come so far. We have achieved so much. We have come up with self-driving cars and package-delivering drones. We have curved-screen TVs and handheld

12 computers. We have craft beers and designer coffees. We have mapped the human genome and can intervene with gene therapy before diseases occur. Our achievements have been stunning, but, in truth, we don’t have it right yet. We are still barely crawling out of dark caverns of ignorance and fear. There is still too much war and too much hatred. There is too much religious demagoguery, too much abuse and bigotry. There is still too much discrimination against women. The residue of racism and racial suspicion haunts us still. Sexual bigotry plagues us still. We are not home yet. So, I say to you, you have gotten here just in time. Your calling, above all else, is to help us get it right. There are crippling problems yet to solve, and barriers to civility yet to break down. There are diseases yet to conquer, violence yet to subdue, prejudices yet to overcome. No, we are not home yet. You have arrived just in time. Look back to gain your bearings. But then, reach deep within you for the courage to live forward. Take hold of these treasures, freedom and thought, and the sanctity of the human spirit. Set your eyes on what is possible. Live forward. Dream boldly. You are our best hope to get it right.

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