Open doors to excellence
(Conclusion)

There is just one more door of excellence that is open to us at Silliman"it is the door to eternal values. And here we speak, not so much of life beyond the grave, as life's decisions influenced by spiritual values today. What we try to inculcate here in our university is this: That the length of our years is not life. To speak of the longevity or shortness of human existence puts it, "Don't Measure Life in Heartbeats." Therefore we should speak of life as either poorly or richly lived, empty or full. For the basic need of man is not to add years to his life but to add life to his years. When our life seem from this perspective, then we can distinguish between the false and true values, the temporary and eternal values.

In a humorous episode on TV, a holdup man sticks a gun at the back of Jack Benny and says: "Your money or your life." Then there is a very long pause, after which Jack Benny says: "I'm still thinking it over." The laughter which follows Jack Benny's answer is an admission of the fact that our values are often not in the right place.

Money in this episode is only representative of the many things in our lives to which we mistakenly attach more value that others. Our Lord was not talking only about money when he said: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

This is a warning that should be written on our hearts. For too often we exchange the sinews of life"integrity, love, generous hearts, enduring friendship, the challenge to serve, magnanimity "for material values. Busy laying up teasures for ourselves, we may someday learn one thing: we have been preoccupied with husks and trappings of life and have missed life itself. Listen to this word from an unknown soldier:

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve: I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for help that I might do greater things. "I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy "I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men "I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life I was given life that I might enjoy all things."

And so as we reflect upon where we are going as a University, let us behold the open doors that our Lord sets before us; the open door to the discovery of truth, the open door to creative and enduring human relationship, the open door to eternal values.*

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