Where are you?
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain
Reading: Genesis 3:7-10
God called out to the Human and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
Both the human beings in this story – Adam and Eve – were hiding. They had suddenly become uncomfortable in their own skin, conscious for the first time that their bodies were unclothed. They hid from each other with fig-leaves, and they hid from God among the trees. Where are you? I’ll come back to that garden later.
A few weeks ago, I was tidying up a garage and discovered albums of photographs I hadn’t seen for years. One contained some pictures of my graduation day at Aberdeen University in the summer of 1991. They were all taken in the courtyard of Marischal College, made of grey granite, on a grey day. In many ways they show scenes just like we will enjoy in our quadrangle after the morning and afternoon ceremonies today. There are graduates, family members and academics. I recognise Professor Robin Cameron and Patricia Clarke who taught me philosophy. And Paul Schlicke – who taught English – though I recall he gave me my worst ever mark for an essay on Walt Whitman. (Maybe I shouldn’t have said that Whitman was a bad poet.)
I also recognise friends, though we are clearly all struggling to find the right position for our white silk MA hoods, and jaunty angle for our mortar boards. One of these friends I hadn’t seen for over 25 years until we bumped into each other at the Climate Justice march last year in Glasgow during Cop 26.
I recognise myself of course – wearing the kilt I will wear again tonight at the Graduation Dinner, albeit with extra buckles added for the extra inches gained over the past 31 years.
And there are pictures of me with my family – my sister who lived then as now in Aberdeen, my mother and my late father, their pride evident in the grainy pictures taken with my Kodak instamatic camera.
Where are you?
Well, these images show where I was – Aberdeen of course.
But also a brand new graduate of English and Philosophy, located somewhere between logic and imagination, reason and feeling, argument and impression.
Situated amid family who had nourished and sustained me throughout my life.
Placed among friends who’d shared these four years, walking through Seaton Park, revising in the Queen Mother Library, and sharing an occasional pint in the Machar Bar. Or the Bobbin Mill. Or the Beestie.
And then there’s a hint of my journey of faith: there’s a picture of Philemon Nfor from Cameroon, whom I knew from the church we both attended. About three months before, I had been accepted as a candidate for ministry in the Church of Scotland, and so I knew how to answer the dreaded question of graduation days: Where are you heading? I was going to study Divinity, but only after a detour teaching English in Japan – where, by the way, I became comfortable in my own skin bathing naked with strangers in hot springs resorts – sorry, that’s probably too much information.
Where are you?
You are in St Andrews. And you will take hundreds of photos today, some of them perhaps with me in this blingy PhD gown from Trinity College Dublin. And then, 30 years later, in the 2050s, you might find these pictures – if tech changes haven’t made their formats inaccessible – maybe print them out!
What will you see in those pictures?
You’ll see your younger self, probably with longer hair, narrower waistband, smoother skin. But you’ll not see a stranger there: you’ll see someone who has been formed by your year or more in St Andrews, whose interests, tastes and convictions were influenced by the Patricia Clarkes and Paul Schlickes of your degree. You’ll recognise someone whose friendships were nurtured on the West Sands, in the Martyrs Library and the Whey Pat. You’ll make out someone whose faith was deepened, or shaken, or expanded by thinking aloud with friends, and even chaplains. And you’ll realise that the person you’ve become was shaped by this beautiful, spiritual place.
Where are you?
You’re in St Andrews for this graduation day.
You’re in the midst of your life, on the cusp of a future yet to happen. We cannot know for sure where we’ll be in a year’s time, let alone 30. But we can know who we are, and who knows us. God asks, ‘Where are you?’ Perhaps he knows where we are in the garden, dodging between the trees, without needing to ask. He just wants us to come out of hiding, and be comfortable in our own skin, before our Maker and Redeemer, before each other, and before our self.
Where are you? Here I am.
END