Hello everyone from UTS,

We are in the final stretch leading up to Commencement 2002, our 26th class, and the first class of the second quarter century.

This year will see some innovations at graduation: displays on the front lawn, an honorary doctorate for Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak, the major Laliberte banner hanging in the chapel apse, hopefully a huge framed painting of Noah's ark, and more.

Those who spend the day here with us are invited up to the third floor dorm, NW wing, to see the prototype private rooms and construction on the dorm renovation project. Soon I will have "before and after" photos on that project.

I would like to send you a brief essay on the vision for the UTS graduate, and a couple of photos from the Farewell Party we had last night, depicting another innovation. I don't know what it's called, perhaps "The Student Body Embrace and Rebirth by Dragging You Through the Ringer and Throwing You Up in the Air Experience." Whatever you call it, it brought joy to us all.

In God's plan of creation, every entity has a purpose of serving an entity larger than itself. What is the greater entity served by a school? A school exists to serve the society, nation and world. It does so by helping to create individuals of quality, individuals who can themselves contribute to the good of the society. The school strives to form of its graduates people who place the needs of society above their personal desires, and who strive to integrate their personal desires, goals, skills and talents with the ideal of service to the greater good.

It is to this purpose that our Board, faculty, staff and administration are dedicated. As servant leaders, our personal interests are subsumed by the task and ideal of creating a school that is continually improving. It is to this higher purpose that we dedicate our work and it is around this purpose that we shape our personal vision.

In this regard, my desire is to develop my abilities to serve God's call as president of this institution. At the same time, in the back of my mind is always my responsibility to find someone who can be a better president than me. If I discover a person with that potential, my responsibility is to help him or her develop the necessary skills, to bequeath whatever I have learned, and ultimately give my place to him or her.

In God's economy, if we do not believe that God has created a place for each of us suitable to who we are, and what He wants us to become, we will be continually frustrated and resentful. The eternal wisdom of religious faith tells us to seek deeply to discover God's purposes in our everyday life, with trust that He is involved in our daily struggles, and accepts our self-offering no matter what the circumstances. When Jesus was on the cross, when martyrs died for their faith, when True Father was tortured in prison and swallowed up in the North Korean gulag, they glorified God's will that put them there. If we cannot do that, we will think we have been treated unfairly. No matter how blessed our life might be, we will always think that we are being treated unfairly.

A line from "Sound of Music" provides Hollywood's simple expression of this pure faith in a higher providence ruling our life: "When God closes a door, He always opens a window somewhere." Graduation is intense and exciting because we participate with men and women who are standing, as a group, outside a closed door. The door to UTS student life is now closed for you, and you have to find a window somewhere. God has prepared a window for you. The Founder and his representatives who have spoken to graduating classes over the years maintain the same emphasis: the UTS graduate is expected to be a person of perfect heart and absolute faith, love and obedience, dedicated to the building of God's kingdom on earth. It means to be able to put oneself aside, pull your mind away from the closing door, and see God's window.

As you do this, your life itself will become a window, as the glory of God finds its occasion to be displayed in you. As we let go of our clinging to life, while maintaining purity of motivation and obedience of spirit, we will always be caught in God's hands.

If you graduates have this, then you are a pure offering, and UTS has fulfilled its mission. Those who do so without reservation, with simple, childlike faith in God, will become the central persons through whom the purposes of God will be fulfilled. Be yourself. Hold on to your vision, ideals and ideas, and offer them as a compliant partner, objective to God. You will be tested. Your leaders, your seniors, are also undergoing training and testing. Paul counsels us to work out our own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is a rule of God that according to the purity of your heart, your wishes will be fulfilled.

May God truly bless the members of class of UTS 2002 and all UTS alumni.

Tyler Hendricks

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