Tom Brokaw's words...

At the U of Montana, Mr. Brokaw spoke to the graduating 'class'. I have read this talk several times, and it is just so rich in content for me. Here's a sample:

“Let me conclude with a small anecdote rooted in Montana that will be with me for the rest of my life. About five years ago at this time of the year, I was at our ranch between Livingston and Big Timber. The water was high in the West Boulder River and I went to an overlook to check its condition. And out of a grove of aspen down below me emerged a small herd of mother elk, accompanied by their three- and four-week-old calves. They paused for a moment on the sandbar and they looked at me 200 yards away and thought I probably posed no great threat. The water was high and swift, the forebank was loaded with hawthorn bushes, very thick. The cow elk led their offspring into the spring to get across to the greener pastures, and all of them made it except one. That poor calf couldn't get through the hawthorn bushes, and he was caught by the water and swept downstream just below me. I wondered for a moment about what to do. And then he found his way into an eddy, he got back on the sandbar, tried again, failed a second time. Then he failed a third time. The herd of cow elk stayed on the far bank, watching, it seemed to me, nervously. And his mother made her way down to the far bank, looked at him – trembling and exhausted on the sandbar across this raging river – and as God as my witness, she nodded her head, waded into the river, led him upstream and helped him across. I was renewed by that moment and I think about it often because as so often happens, we are instructed by nature. We'll come to a lot of raging rivers. We won't always make it across, but we must be there to help each other during times of turbulence so that we can get to the higher ground.

Makes me think: am I helping you?

Click on the title to read Brokaw's other orientation wisdom words to this graduating class. Wow!