{"id":393,"date":"2010-04-15T15:09:45","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T15:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/commencement2008\/?page_id=93"},"modified":"2015-03-19T12:11:14","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T16:11:14","slug":"interfaith-blessing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/annual\/y2008\/baccalaureate-service\/interfaith-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Interfaith Blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The blessing is composed and read by students from the Class of 2008, who represent Protestant Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist faiths and traditions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Cataloguing The Source<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere a house<br \/>\nhas built itself.<br \/>\nElsewhere, potatoes<br \/>\ncome already-stuffed.<br \/>\nWater, in its cycles,<br \/>\nseems to have always<br \/>\nbeen. Fish are inclined,<br \/>\nunpracticed, to swim.<br \/>\nPeople do not arrive like that.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We have our bodies<br \/>\nof course, and ids \u2014<br \/>\nbut let\u2019s not split<br \/>\nhairs. The rest<br \/>\ndepends upon the<br \/>\nweather. The stars<br \/>\nin a circle, line or<br \/>\npolygon. These might<br \/>\nbe who we are. A mind.<br \/>\nA mouth. A proper<br \/>\nnoun. A shared proper<br \/>\nnoun, following. A<br \/>\nsage\u2019s forecast. Snouts<br \/>\nof kindly dogs that sit<br \/>\nfastened outside a market.<br \/>\nThe grocer\u2019s, too, has<br \/>\ninfluence: its small<br \/>\nworld bending into each<br \/>\nof ours. Are we changed<br \/>\nby two-for-a-dollar<br \/>\ncanned pineapples<br \/>\nand Heineken? Perhaps<br \/>\nwe\u2019re moved to be<br \/>\nbecause of words we<br \/>\nprize and homes we<br \/>\nkeep, the kindnesses we<br \/>\nchoose to accept:<br \/>\na friend\u2019s, a mother\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Whose idea was it<br \/>\nto bulb all these things?<br \/>\nWho believed in the<br \/>\nfat seed, and buried it?<br \/>\nWho suspected all this<br \/>\ncould have budded?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Laura Burns, Class of 2008<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The blessing is composed and read by students from the Class of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":381,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-393","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3815,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/393\/revisions\/3815"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}