1974 Homecoming Chapel Address - by Brock Brentlinger

Both of us, you the audience, and me the speaker enter into this chapel service on dangerous ground this morning. We run the risk of participating in a meaningless expression of mere sentiment. Let me explain:

This occasion is a rather climatic one for me personally, because of the twenty pleasant years on this campus and in this community as a student and faculty member. Nostalgia is what I fight this morning as I speak again to a Greenville College audience and struggle to say something of meaning and of currency to you. The occasion is one of significance for you, too; not quite the usual chapel service, that is, if you have any feeling for the institution you attend or work for. Homecoming situations are exciting and emotion-generating times and notorious for motivating one to utter overly-sentimental and overly-simplified statements about the grand effects of higher education and particularly the education offered by my "alma mater." If we are not careful, the occasion may tempt us both to be unrealistic about ourselves.

It is with some caution, then, that I have chosen this morning to speak directly to your homecoming them: "Greenville: A Timeless Tradition." I want to talk with you for a few moments about the power of tradition, how it is manifested at Greenville College, and what it may be expected to do in the future. I have entitled these remarks: "The 'Can Be,' the 'Is,' and the 'Should Be', of Tradition at Greenville."

Take a moment with me to reflect upon the meaning of this word "tradition". I think we are in danger of abusing its meaning a bit in our current practice. Tradition is the process of handing down information, beliefs and customs by word of mouth, or by example, from one generation to another without written instruction. It is an inherited pattern of thought and or action, not an inherited document with specific admonition or direction. The Bible, then, is really not a part of tradition. Reading the Bible is. The Greenville College catalogs of the past are not a part of the college's tradition. Tradition, you see, is very much a matter of interpretation; it is what a group of people continue to say and to do over and over again as a result of a philosophy of life, or maybe just unthoughtful imitation. What we write down, and therefore subscribe to is really not our tradition. Tradition refuses to be categorized quite so neatly as our laws. Tradition seems to be less scientific, not necessarily less rigid, but at least not quite so easily pinned down.

Maybe tradition is the real residue of a philosophy of life, that which gradually trickles down to the bottom of our lives and becomes so common, so acceptable that we don't have to write it down to remember it; everyone knows it, everyone accepts it, everyone remembers it; why write it down -- it is already written in our hearts. We may even operate within its influence without being aware of it.

I suppose this is the reason why the creative thinkers of the past have been so critical of tradition. Nietzsche said that "every tradition grows ever more vulnerable -- the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is." Emerson talked of men grinding and grinding "in the mill of a truism," with nothing coming out but what was put in. "But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought," he said, "then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning... all flock to their aid." Someone called tradition the "tyranny of the dead over the living."

Obviously, when we yield to tradition, we are yielding to a powerful force in our lives. Frequently, it can be a power for good, for there must be some reason why "it had always been done that way." "That way" must have worked at one time or another; and, at least by one group of people would be denied the traditions of the past. How many great principles, beliefs, ways of acting, ways of thinking might be lost for years, before discovered again, if at all.

Tradition is frequently simply example. Tradition can bind together a host of examples if living, and drop them at our feet for out guidance. Pic Lamour, a famous Broadway character used to say, "Experience is the cheapest thing in the world -- if you are willing to get it secondhand." We all may make a big mistake, when we don't choose to get some of our experience secondhand. We might save ourselves many a heartache, many a tear, by simply following the advice of an elder, the example of one who has gone before. I know that is asking quite a lot, particularly of the young, because there is something almost instinctive within us that cries out, "Mother, I want to do it myself." It is unfair for me to ask you not to get your own experience. I know it is a great teacher, but so can be tradition.

Tradition obviously has had its place at Greenville College; frequently, within the Church or the Christian college it becomes an issue. Some would give it too much place, and others perhaps not enough.

Tradition at Greenville is a chapel service e.g. which brings together the strange bedfellows of warm spirituality on the part of those seeking a moment's worship in an otherwise hectic day, and unembarrassed inattentiveness on the part of those for whom a chapel service is, in itself, disruptive to a much more preferred daily routine. Tradition on this campus may be a reluctant journey to Wednesday evening vespers but often a satisfied return from them; it is the discipline of Sunday morning Sunday school and Sunday evening worship; it is a Florence Nightengale concern for the soul as well as the body. Tradition at Greenville permits talk of "revival" and admits into the conversations of 1974 such renaissance-like terms as "regeneration," "sanctification," and "repentance." Over the years, it has been the closely-knit chapel talk of a Wilson King, the anecdote laden challenge of an H.J. Long.

Tradition at Greenville College is a February evening basketball game under the warm glow of the lights of Long Gymnasium, a soccer game on a brisk, cloudy, fall afternoon at Francis Field, a baseball game on a windy, nippy day in the spring. It is a jocular, devil-may-care, Coach Strahl, who really does care! It's an alumni basketball team that they are still on the same side of the hill as their opponents, and they usually do.

Tradition at Greenville is a John Ayers growling at his students, hiding a warm concern under a lion's roar. It is current, up-to-date instruction perhaps at times in an out-of-date classroom. It is the century-old spirits of Hogue Hall confused and baffled by the sights and sounds of an IBM data-processing system. Tradition at Greenville is a university-qualified student getting something extra at a small college.

It is the strains of an ACappella choir breathing life and meaning into what might be for some only a cold, theological concept. Tradition at Greenville is beginning to be more and more a pot taking shape on a wheel, a painting being painted, rather than simply hung; a message coming from a play, heaven-forbid, something which Greenville students used to only read about but now call forth their lines behind, of all things, MAKE-UP -- for some traditions change.

Tradition at Greenville College used to be a mound of potatoes and a jar of peanut butter in the middle of a plastic tablecloth, but now I understand Peanut butter has lost out to hamburgers and french fries.

Tradition at Greenville is still at spotless, well decorated men's dorm room at homecoming, backsliding to its usual clutter and disarray for the remainder of the year. It is leaves raked up, but not always picked up in time for homecoming guests.

Greenville College is the kind of college one gets irritated with as a student and loves as an alumnus. Greenville is something unseen, a bit indescribable, beyond complete identification. It is spirit, not spirit as the world knows it, but spirit in worship that sweeps over the group with a sudden surge producing only the sound of a teardrop running over a cheek, if there is such a sound; spirit mushrooming to the top of Long Gymnasium as the Panthers move out ahead of Principia; spirit sensed only as a short tug at the heart as you see an old classmate in the fall after a summer's vacation, or five or ten years after graduating with him, something that will happen over and over again on this campus within a few hours.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are a few of the things that have made Greenville distinctive; these are the traditions, not written down in books that really do make this place live. One does not come by them easily. How many years does it take to produce a tradition? It takes a lot of years, and a lot of lives packed with interest and commitment. Traditions are not mass-produced and packaged. Traditions come through sacrifice and loyalty and dedication.

I don't know this in theory; I know it in fact. I know what a faculty member gives up to teach at Greenville College. He's not in a federal poverty program yet, but on the other hand when the AAUP produces its institutional ratings of faculty salaries, Greenville gets grades like most of you are ashamed of in the classroom.

I know what a student may surrender to come to Greenville College. For one thing your education costs you more. (Texas - $4 per hour) That means some sacrifice back home. And though your education is superior you may not always have the latest and best equipment in the most modern and up-to-date laboratory. And when you go home to visit your friends, on vacation, who now attend Purdue, Southern Methodist, Ohio State University, or Michigan State, you surrender a bit of prestige as you answer the question, Greenville what?

But if you are tempted this morning to ask if it's worth it, just leaf through Who's Who now and then and note how often this little college appears. Better still, page through the catalogs of many of the best colleges and universities across the land and see how often Greenville College comes up as the source of a degree.

Traditions, then are not paid for easily and yet they can be lost so quickly. You know that every tradition is just a generation away form extinction because it is handed down, not written down, and that's not less true at Greenville College. Why, already, in just a few years, playing cards are moving in upon rook, white socks have lost out to black ones or no socks, modern instrumental and vocal ensembles have replaced men's quartets, formerly anchored with a Tidball-like bass, and complex organs have been substituted for pitchpipes. (Abstract paintings of Midwest barns. Pulpit settings have been split.) I witnessed the resoluteness and determination of a Holtwick, a King, a Tenney, a Dare, a Kinney that kept many of the traditions going at Greenville that you profit from today. These people literally had blood in their eyes as they doggedly want traditions, but doing this, almost accidentally, as they sought to serve God in this college and express a distinctive philosophy of education.

My question this morning for students, faculty, and alumni is this: I wonder what the future holds for our traditions. First of all, we should be courageous enough to kill some of them, especially the traditions that get so feeble they have to be propped up here in the seventies. Killing a tradition is dangerous business, sort of like that of killing rattlesnakes, which some of my West Texas friends engage in, and a rattlesnake can bite back, and give one a powerful lot of trouble. So can a tradition. Some people can even lose their jobs, killing traditions -- even those that should have been killed years before. It's dangerous business and takes courage, but we're dead if we become caught up in preserving any tradition that we no longer really believe in.

There are some colleges, for example, that ought to have been snuffed out years ago. It's down right amazing how long a college can live without any life in it. If this college ever gets that way, and it's far from it now, somebody ought to have the courage to kill it immediately. It's just not merciful to allow a college to die a slow death; it hurts so much and is so depressing. The same thing ought to be done to enfeebled service clubs and PTA's -- isn't that true Dr. Stephens? (Amen? - Asleep!)

Some traditions should not be killed, but changed, brought up to date, made meaningful again by an adaptation to new circumstances around it. Many traditions have a substancial true and basic principle that has become hidden by ancient dress. Wipe away the dust, give it a new coat of paint and we may discover that it is just as valuable as ever.

Some traditions should not be touched. They should be preserved as they are. Undergirded with a new determination to see them continue to be as meaningful today as 25 or 50 or 100 years ago.

The question is, how do you tell the difference among them?

T.S. Elliot in "After Strange Gods" suggested the answer. "Tradition by itself," he said, "is not enough; it must be perpetually criticized and brought up to date under supervision of what I call orthodoxy!" Now we can't turn our traditions over to just anyone for review. For example, the disciplines of change in our land get high on anything that's new. And you know what they would do to most traditions. There's another group of people to whom we cannot release the review of our traditions, and these are the moss-backs, who never get a charge our of anything that's not 50 years old. To them, an antique is just as important as a brand new idea or way of doing something. I like the word "orthodoxy"; it has the ring of something genuine. I like it better than "fundamentalism" and either "liberal" or "conservative". Of course, it, too, can be abused both by definition and practice. Some people are not content for it to stand alone and must add a qualifying prefix like "neo" or "true". Generally speaking, though, the orthodox, the sound in opinion or doctrine, can be pretty good supervisors of tradition, once we find them.

So then, this, to me is the "can be", "is" and "should be" of tradition in respect to this, our college home. After all others have had their say, maybe Chesterton speaks most intelligently about tradition in relation to this college: "Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, but that the dead are living." That's true of Greenville for this place still is made vibrant because of examples of the Hogues, and Burritts, and LaDues, and Holtwicks, and Dares, and Tenneys who helped to establish and indeed live on through our traditions. Their influence over us today is not a tyranny but an inspiration. They do not suppress us, they inspire us! Let's covenant among ourselves this morning to keep these great lives, yet alive on this campus and make Greenville traditions not only timeless, but always meaningful as well.