The members of the Class of 2005 chose “changing tides” as the theme of their Baccalaureate service in witness to the momentous transitions that have occurred during their four college years — transitions on campus, in Lewiston-Auburn, in the United States, and in the world. In the face of such tumult these men and women have opened their hearts and minds, learned grace and courage, and taken up commitment and service to one another and to their larger communities. Graduating into a world transformed, theirs is a generation that will forge beauty and wholeness anew, riding the changing tides.

“The Tides”

I saw the long line of the vacant shore,
The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,
And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,
As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Then heard I, more distinctly than before,
The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,
And hurrying came on the defenseless land
The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.
All thought and feeling and desire, I said,
Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song
Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o’er me
They swept again from their deep ocean bed,
And in a tumult of delight, and strong
As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me!

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow