The Rev. Richard Elvee
“It is time to go, I know…Gustavus has been a home to you for four years, and though you don’t realize in your haste to go just now, you are leaving a home, and to this home you will be coming back, whether in the body or in the spirit all your life, for a little college is a special kind of home, a mystical home that was, yet never was. Homeland is a place which appears to everyone in his youth but in which no one has ever dwelled. Homeland, kingdom of identity, keeper of dreams, expectations what was it we sought here, what was the vision, what fair, gracious charming beautiful thing did we dream—the meaning of life, the conscience of history, blessedness and the kingdom of light and of God, the final naturalization of man and humanization of nature, that would turn the world into a real home. O Odyssey, O Faust, O Jesus, O golden ground of music, O shining world of nature, O Gustavus. Amen.” Chaplain Richard Elvee 1972 Baccalaureate