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As I promised on Friday, here's the speech I gave at Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass yesterday:

Thank you President Schapiro, and good morning everyone — dedicated faculty and staff, proud parents and, of course, graduates! I am honored to be a small part of this very big day.

Having heard so much about Williams and Williamstown from my brother-in-law Jim Batchelor — class of '72 — and from my sister, Clara, who left Smith to spend her junior year here (mostly because of Jim), it’s as beautiful as they’ve described. It’s no wonder Thoreau said after visiting here in 1844, “it would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain.”

And after doing a little reporting, I’ve learned a lot about this school and its legitimate bragging rights as a college of firsts — the first to sponsor a scientific expedition, the first to build an astronomy observatory in America.

And Williams was the first school in the country to adopt the Oxford tradition of sporting caps and gowns at graduation — an effort to make the class more egalitarian. So it’s because of Williams that hundreds of thousands of graduates this time of year will be sporting this figure-flattering, dress-it-up, dress-it-down ensemble.

And Williams, no doubt, is the first and last school in the country to adopt a purple cow as its mascot. I’m sure this bovine bruiser instills a tremendous amount of fear on the football field.

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In the days to come, we'll be reading a lot of snippets from commencement speeches. 'Tis the season. Some will be hilarious. Some dreadful. A few will actually say something that make you put down your morning coffee and think. This speech is one of those.

It was delivered by Rev. Joy Carroll Wallace at Goshen College last weekend. Among other things, she said:

My hope today is to equip you with a warning and commission that might be helpful as you set out on this journey, as you begin the next chapter of your lives. So I want to tell you a story.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, fear, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other one is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about this for few minutes and then he looked up at his grandfather and asked: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed. The one you feed.”

Read the rest. Print it. Save it. Share it. It's worth it.