Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday … on a Wednesday! And Happy Thanksgiving.

The opportunity to give thanks is a universal opportunity for all to “be grateful for [our] lives, every detail of it.” In the words of Rumi, “… gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.” 

Thanksgiving, this purely nondenominational, nonpartisan, quintessentially American day of gratitude, reminds me of Hafez, the 14th century Persian lyric poet’s poem, “I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure soul.  ‘Love’ has befriended me so completely that it has turned me to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known.”

To all our alumni and friends around the world who celebrate Thanksgiving, and to all our students, faculty and staff, I, with an attitude of gratitude, say “Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!” May the mighty power of peace and calm replace the “empty gusts of passion” howling our world today!

In the words of William Cullen Bryant:

“Yet let no empty gust
Of passion find an utterance in thy lay,
A blast that whirls the dust
Along the howling street and dies away;
But feelings of calm power and mighty sweep.
Like currents journeying through the windless deep.”

Warmly,

-Mo.
 
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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu