A graduation speech that strikes a chord

It's graduation season, and it is hitting harder for me with my oldest being a sophomore. My wife is an upper-high school teacher and goes through it each year. "This is a good class. I'm going to miss them," she said after a senior event at her school last week. With graduation season comes one of the oratory highlights of American life: The graduation speech. Seniors across our area are putting the final touches on theirs, and wisdom will be dispelled in gymnasiums and stadiums across the landscape. I came across a speech this week that stopped me in my tracks. It was given at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill's commencement ceremony last weekend. Delivering the perfectly framed speech was none other than country music superstar Eric Church, who happens to be one of my favorite artists. Church's words focus on what he calls the six "strings" of life — faith, family, spouse, ambition, community, you. Here are his words. I think there is wisdom in them for all of us. "You were made uniquely, wonderfully, distinctly. There's a sound only you can make. A voice that has never existed before you, and will never exist again. A contribution only you can bring. A way of seeing that belongs only to you. The world does not need another cover song, it needs an original. Six strings. Six strings of life and willingness to keep them in tune. Six strings of principles. Six strings of pillars. When all six are in tune with each other, the chord your life makes is full, and resonate and true. All six will drift. Not one or two. All six. In their own time, in their own season. Your faith will go quiet when you need it loud. Your family will get complicated in a way only the people who love you most can complicate things. You will go through hard seasons with your spouse. Your ambition will hollow out and your resilience will wear thin. Your community will start to fill like an obligation and your world will try to sand down the edges of exactly who you are. This is not failure, this is not weakness. It is the invevitable, universal experience of living in an imperfect world that doesn't stop to let us tune up. And the difference between a life that sounds like music, and a life that sounds like noise is whether you stop and listen. Whether you're honest enough to hear which string has drifted out of tune and humble enough to make the adjustment instead of just turning up the volume and hope that nobody notices. Because you will notice. The part of you that knows what the chord should sound like will always notice. It will not let you go. Life will not be right until it is tuned. Trust what your heart hears and is telling you about your song. Now, graduates, I encourage you to take your strings, make something worth hearing and play your song as I leave you with mine." Congratulations to the Class of 2026! Jeremy Speer is the publisher of The Courier, Findlay, the Sandusky Register, The Advertiser-Tribune, Tiffin, the Norwalk Reflector and Review Times, Fostoria. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com.