Joe McGill's Farewell address

(brought to you courtesy of Paul Dembowski)

My Dad always told me that the best speech to give is the one you don't. I think he's right. On his birthday, July 1st, you showed me the depth of your charity, love, and esteem. On that day, it could only go unmatched.

You offered me the greatest possible moment; you exalted me. But it was also my moment of terrible, searing pain.

Once again, TKE brought me my highest and lowest moment. Only this time, it was in the same instant! Standing there, with the collectivity of TKE screaming for me, well,... it made me aware of what the rock star, the hero, the zealot, the despot, must feel. It filled me and scared me. I'll never forget that moment. Once more, TKE taught me a most valuable lesson. Even with the closest of friends: be prepared for anything and never let your guard down. Thoughts rolled through my mind on what to say, nothing came out. Nothing could. Really. There was nothing I could say that would do justice to the moment. I Floundered. I even knew I was greatly disappointing you. I knew I was letting you down. I am really, really sorry for that.

Yet there is something very peculiar about me for you to know if you are to know me well.

I don't believe in heroes. Not in real life anyway. And I don't want to be one. They always let you down in the end. Just as I did. It can only be tragic. I have come to believe this is the problem of our future. As long as we keep looking to our leaders, there will be the led.

I believe it will be a good day when there are no leaders, and no leadership. It will mean, (should it happen) that there is only us. As individuals, together and alone. Fully realizing and accepting responsibility for ourselves and for our citizenship that, in its own special way, is both liberating and essential.

On that day we will be free. Leaders attempt to liberate us but this never happens truly. We only replace bad leaders with supposedly good ones who, we soon discover, are bad too.

Perhaps, someday, man will discover a paradoxical truth of leadership: it's a fraud.

Don't follow your leaders. Don't praise them, don't love them, don't even listen to them. As long as we look to them for our salvation and liberation we are their prisoners, though we may be smiling. Maybe even feeling a little secure....

I am not your leader. I am your brother. I am not above you. I am oh so like you. I am the fraternity.

I only wanted to be with my brothers....

|You caught me completely off guard. You honored me in the greatest style and I could only look back at you. To know glory one must know shame. I looked both right in the face that night.

It was awesome! Truly.

Yet you forced me to face the truth of my very point. People want their heroes to be heroic. I wasn't at all. In the same instant, it made me free -- but I still felt ashamed.

To let you down is the worst pain. Yet, I have learned the only way to rid my pain is let it teach me. I am learning far more about what I believe through the pain I now feel than if I did go ahead and try to say some type of profound statement.

A most strange gift, indeed.

John [Winston, most likely] was very kind to me when he said, "Let's capture the moment, ...McGill can't say anything." It's true. When have you ever seen that happen before (till then)? Jabba was generous too in his defense. He leaned over and told Stuart, "I've seen McGill in every possible situation that can happen,...I've never seen him unable to talk,...Look at him...he's doing something new."

Charity, love, esteem....God bless TKE.

And so, oddly, all that I might have done which prompted you to so nobly recognize me also was my most humble, and worst, moment. Right there in front of you. I know it disappointed most of you. I am quite sorry for that. But God has this habit of humbling me in my most vulnerable moments. That was the most humbling I've ever experienced. It was a glorious moment and my shame is that I was fully caught off guard and quite out of character. I honestly didn't know what to say, I was so moved.

I--didn't do anything when you most wanted me too....

But I am your brother. I hope you will forgive me for I could only share the moment in silence. It was my best moment. It was the best I could do.

Remember, fate brought us together, but it has been up to us to become friends. I hope you remember me, ultimately, as a special friend and brother, not as a leader or hero. I won't fail you as a special friend and brother.... However, you've already seen that I can -- as a leader or hero. Depend on me for the former, not the latter. You'll be happier and wiser for it.

TKE and all we have done within it together, has changed us. Take the time to reflect on that. In what way have you changed, grown, and developed? What is your part in TKE being (or not being) what it is, what it stands for, or what it can mean? It is well worth the time....

To know you have changed is meaningful, to know how you have changed is itself, priceless. Learn that the only real leader, the only real man, is he who turns to his inner most soul for the transformations and lessons of life. It is in us. Close your eyes and look for the answers to these questions.

Look to yourself, look to your friends, look to your brothers. Become closer to yourself so that you can become closer to others. Implement your introspection. You have to, for if you don't, the world will try to crush you like it has crushed so many before you. It is a very fine line between developing and maintaining your ideals, your enthusiasm, and your sense of vision while still trying to learn how to live and cope with the ways of the world. If you don't try, a few decades from now your children will be as disgusted with you as you are with today's, "leaders." Many never even ponder the process. I hope you do, and find the journey thrilling.

Are you prepared for your future? Personally, I don't know how to answer the crazy and impossible questions lying before us. In fact, my mind asks bizarre questions; such as, are evolutionary or creationist theories true; was Christ actually born of a virgin and is he the son of God; is the world indeed a whirl of opposing forces, the Yin and the Yang, or simply a whirl, a mistake; Do all our adult problems trace back to the erotic feelings we had for our mothers at age two; does Jerry Falwell really talk to God every night or is he just a hoax concocted by a man with a deep voice calling from a pay phone in Boise; and, given enough time, will people in the Pentagon begin to utter such phrases as, "Oh, well, let's just drink instant coffee and save the taxpayers some money," and, "Look! I found a screwdriver that only cost a dollar forty-nine," or, "Don't you think it would be better if we stopped building all this unusable hardware and started investing in our children's educations?" and "Real men don't need toilet seat covers in their F-14's anyway."

My brothers, my friends, despite the fact that I am now over 3,000 miles away, I still feel how close you are because in my mind you are in my everyday life. May our lives, our charity, our love, and our esteem continue for the millennium or longer.

I would like to close with my favorite parable:

And he said unto them, "If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?" "Of course, Master!" cried the many.

"It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it."

"No matter what those tortures, nor how difficult the task?" "Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree, and burned, if so be that God has asked," they said "And what would you do," the Master said to the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face and said, 'I command that you be happy in all the world, as long as you live,' What would you do then?" And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood....

The happiness that you have commanded into my life is from God himself, I know that, and at Kasper's when you revealed it to me, "not a voice, not a sound was heard," across the patio where he stood....

Now you know why I couldn't say anything.... Through you, I heard the voice of God speaking directly to my face -- commanding that I be happy in all the world.

What did I do then? I was silent. Not my voice, not a sound was heard where I stood....

It was the greatest gift of all. Thank you.

I loved you fellas.
I love you fellas.
I will always love you fellas.
We will meet again.
I love TKE.

YITB ,
Joe