A Cobber's Search for Meaning

May 05, 2013

Roxana Saberi

View Commencement photos on Flickr

Roxana Saberi '97 Commencement Address
(05.05.2013)

Thank you, President Craft, for your generous introduction.

President Craft, Chairman Tunheim; faculty and staff; families, friends, students and, most importantly, honored graduates …

It’s a thrill to finally be your commencement speaker. I apologize I couldn’t make it in 2009, when I was first invited, but I was stuck in a prison in Iran.

If not for the support of the Concordia community, other friends and even total strangers around the world, I might still be in Evin Prison, instead of here at Concordia, where my adult life began.

I was asked to talk to you about what Concordia taught me as I set out into the world, and how this might benefit you.

I think the best way to do this is to tell you how I’ve been affected by Concordia’s mission: “to influence the affairs of the world by sending into society thoughtful and informed men and women …” This mission has guided me through the years, though the way I define it has evolved.

I didn’t know about the mission the first time I set foot on this campus. I came here to take piano lessons from the late Inta Stahl. I was just a scrawny 11-year-old, yet the grown-up students always said hello with the warmest smiles.

Six years later, as a freshman at Concordia, I learned that it was cool to be nice.

I also learned the importance of being well rounded — and I don’t mean by gaining the freshman 15.

Like many of you, I worked hard and played hard. I played soccer, continued piano with Jay Hershberger, reported for Concordia On-Air with Don Rice and the late Rusty Casselton, and worked at the campus TV center with the late Dean Olson.

And through my classes, for the first time, I began to reflect deeply on the purpose and meaning of life.

As students here, you’ve probably read books that made you contemplate the meaning of your own lives. One book I read as a freshman was "Man’s Search for Meaning." How many of you have read it?

In this book, Viktor Frankl wrote that our greatest task is to find meaning in life. He saw three possible sources of meaning:

1.    in work, or doing a deed;
2.    in love; and
3.    in unavoidable suffering.

I didn’t expect to find meaning in love or unavoidable suffering any time soon, so I longed to find meaning through work, by devoting myself to a cause to serve humanity. This, I believed, would be in line with Concordia’s mission “to influence the affairs of the world …”

What paths have you chosen to influence the world? Business? Communications? Education? Healthcare? Music? Other fields?

The path I chose was journalism.

To make my mark on the world, I felt I had to make a difference on a large scale, not on a small one. So I dreamed of becoming a foreign news correspondent.

When I was sitting where you are today, I was planning to embark on an internship at the NBC news channel in North Carolina. But plans often change, and these changes can be opportunities.

A month after graduation, I somehow became Miss North Dakota, and with scholarships from the Miss America program was able to attend graduate school.

Then, still determined to become a foreign correspondent, I applied for jobs at CNN and BBC overseas. Needless to say, I didn’t even get an interview!

Instead, my first full-time reporting job was here, in my hometown of Fargo. I love Fargo, but those first couple of months, I felt sorry for myself. I was supposed to be influencing the affairs of the world, not reporting on potholes and blizzards.

I snapped out of it when I realized I had a lot to appreciate right here in Fargo-Moorhead. I had caring and talented colleagues, responsibilities I wouldn’t have had in bigger cities, and a chance to contribute to my community.

I learned I could find meaning in my work wherever it took me, if I had the right attitude.

Three years later, in 2003, I had the chance to report in my father’s native land of Iran. Some friends and colleagues advised me not to go. But I was sure that being a correspondent in Iran would help me better influence the affairs of the world. My heart was telling me to go.

What’s your heart telling you? Will you have the courage to follow it?

When you follow your heart, you may encounter opposition even from people who care about you. You’ll face difficulties, but you’ll also find fulfillment.

That’s what happened to me. I moved to Iran, and I loved reporting there.

But after three-and-a-half years, the Iranian government pulled my press pass with no explanation.

All of a sudden, I lost my identity and my purpose. If I wasn’t a foreign news correspondent, who was I? If I couldn’t report in Iran, how could I help influence the affairs of the world?

Eventually I realized though one road was blocked, I could choose another.

So I decided to write a book about Iran.

As I was working on it, Concordia’s then-president Pamela Jolicoeur invited me to speak at the May 2009 commencement.

Over the following months, I tried to find words of wisdom to share with the graduates.

On January 24, 2009, I wrote these ideas in my diary:

1.    Listen to your heart, your conscience. Usually what they tell you is right.
2.    No one can take knowledge away from you. It’s always worth investing in.
3.    Find an identity separate from work, from another person, and from material things, so if you lose them, you don’t lose yourself, too.

I admit I was struggling to follow my own advice. At times, I was filled with what they call in Farsi poochi: absurdity, or lack of meaning. And then I’d think, how can I inspire graduates to find their way when I feel so lost?

These thoughts troubled me a few nights later. As I was drifting asleep, I asked myself what I’d do next with my life: where I’d live, whom I’d be with, whether anyone would ever read my book. And then I wondered: But does any of this really matter? No. In fact, nothing really matters.

I started to think that despite my efforts, my life didn’t have much meaning, and I was tired of striving to give it meaning. In the end, we all die anyway. I couldn’t recall why I’d ever been so resolved to make a difference in the world.

The next morning, on January 31, 2009, I was arrested. And that afternoon, I was locked up in solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

My captors said I was interviewing too many people simply to write a book and claimed that my book was a cover for espionage for the CIA. They said if I didn’t confess to spying, I could stay in prison for 20 years or even be executed.

I hope you are never imprisoned — or haven’t been imprisoned already — but we’ll all have our own prisons: situations in which we feel trapped, like we can’t break free from what’s happening to us.

Our prisons come in different forms: a broken heart, an illness, the loss of a job, the suffering of a loved one, feeling hurt by others.

How will you break free from your prisons?

Me? I prayed. Hard.

I got down on my knees in my cell, pressed my forehead to the cement floor, and said: “God, when I spoke to you last night, I was just kidding! I really do want to live. Please, save me!”

Later, I tried bargaining with Him. “God, if I get out of here soon, I’ll abandon journalism and writing and never interview anyone ever again.”

At other times I was angry: at myself, at tensions between Iran and the U.S., and at God. “God,” I said, “I was just trying to serve society. Why are you punishing me?”

After many tears, I finally reached the first step in truly dealing with adversity: acceptance. I had to accept that I couldn’t change my past or my present situation. No one knew where I was, and as much as I wished that an earthquake would split open the prison walls, there was no escape.

All I had was my faith and the power to control my attitude.

Bad things happen to all of us. What matters most is how we deal with them.

I was reminded of this lesson by my cellmates, women punished for peacefully exercising their basic human rights. They made the most of their time in prison:  They exercised — in place — in their cells every day; discussed the books they were allowed to read; and asked me to teach them English phrases to use for shopping, traveling, and of course, swearing.

I was also reminded of the power of attitude by a book that one cellmate had. Do you know which book? "Man’s Search for Meaning!" It was translated into Persian.

When I reread it in my cell, I found new meaning in the words of Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

By choosing our attitude, we can find meaning in our prisons — our adversities — and turn them into opportunities to grow and even to help others.

When I was in prison, it was extremely difficult to grasp this idea. How could I ever find meaning in being locked up against my will and charged with a crime I didn’t commit?

But gradually, I found meaning through the lessons I learned.

My father taught me one of them. Once, when my captors let me call him in Fargo, he told me, “Roxana, just remember: They can never hurt your soul.”

He meant that others may harm us with their words and actions, but they cannot harm our souls; our essence; the deep, unchanging stillness within us; the joy of Being; the peace of God.

The Bible says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” I whispered those words to myself whenever I was taken, blindfolded, into the interrogation room. And they gave me strength.

When faced with a challenge, we can ask ourselves, how does this really affect me? Not my social status or my ego, but my essence.

Your partner breaks up with you? You can’t find a job? Someone doesn’t like you?

None of these has the power to affect our inner state of being, our souls.

If we take this realization a step further, we see that not only do we have this essence, this soul, but so does everyone around us. It’s what unites humanity.

When we realize this, we feel compassion for others.

The 13th-century Persian poet Sa’adi illustrates this idea in a poem that adorns one wall of the United Nations:

Human beings are members of a whole, in creation of one essence and soul. …
If you’ve no empathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain.

Awareness of this deep bond isn’t always easy. How can we feel compassion for people who wrong us?

One day I asked two of my cellmates this question. They’re members of Iran’s minority Baha’i faith serving 20-year prison sentences for practicing their religion. One of them had told me her father had been tortured in an Iranian prison years earlier and died shortly after his release.

“How can you not hate your captors?” I asked them.

You know what they said?

We don’t hate them; “we forgive them.” … “We believe in love and compassion for humanity, even for those who wrong us. … We don’t want to become like them. … We hope God will help us show them a better way.”

Feeling compassion for all humanity motivates us to serve society — to influence the affairs of the world — by touching other souls with our own.

Concordia promotes compassion for others. That’s why many of you have done community service, such as Habitat for Humanity and Teach for America.

It’s also part of the reason I’m free today. When I couldn’t speak at commencement four years ago, my mentor and friend Margo Melnicove spoke in my place. And everywhere she looked, there were yellow ribbons on my behalf and people calling for my freedom.

When I heard about this outpouring of support, I realized I wasn’t alone and that I didn’t have to stand up to injustice by myself anymore.

I believe efforts like these helped pressure the Iranian authorities to overturn my 8-year prison sentence and free me after 100 days. Every voice, I learned, can make a difference.

Today, nearly four years after I was freed and several years since I graduated from Concordia, I’m still discovering how I can best influence the affairs of the world.

Maybe you’re asking yourselves the same question.

Perhaps what I have discovered can help you find an answer that’s right for you.

Service begins with consciousness of the soul or essence within us, which unites us with all humanity. If you look into the eyes of the person next to you — go ahead, try it — you will see a reflection of yourself.

When we become aware of this bond, we feel compassion toward others, which helps us serve with a spirit of joy.

I’ve learned that the spirit in which service is rendered is more important than the form of service itself.

When we are fueled with the spirit of compassion, we can make a difference anywhere: through our careers or volunteer work, by speaking out for those who can’t speak out for themselves, or simply by being a loving family member or friend.

Influencing the affairs of the world happens when we let our souls touch other souls.

We can do this even in the most challenging situations, if we choose an attitude of compassion, hope, and love over fear, despair, and hatred.

This is what Concordia has helped me learn, and I hope it will help you, too, as you set out to influence the affairs of the world.

Congratulations, Concordia graduates of 2013! May your souls touch other souls!

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