When the day for the wedding approached, Hermi and several other women gathered flowers from their yards for the alter and pews. Hermi also made a much greater gift to us that day. Roger and I pledged ourselves to each other with wine from the goblet that she and Michael used at their own wedding. And the altar was covered with linens from Hermi had brought with her from her family's home in the Phillipines.

What made this particularly special? Hermi's family had lost their lands, their home, pretty much everything they owned, to the Marcos regime. Those table linens were one of the few things she had left from her childhood. But instead of keeping them safe in a storage chest, Hermi chose to risk wine stains and candle wax to make them part of our celebration.

Few outside of the St. John's community have heard of Michael and Hermi Littleton. They were not famous and he chose to teach at an unusual undergraduate school for a modest salary when he could well have earned a lot more in other jobs. But the example of their deeply committed marriage, and Hermi's courageous choice -- to respond to tyranny and loss by giving to others -- made a deep impression on all who knew them.

Michael spoke at the baccalaureate for Roger's graduating class, the day after our wedding. :

"Yesterday we celebrated a wedding. Now the hard part comes, the marriage. That will take a lifetime to build. So too, today you graduate and go out as adults into the world. Your contributions to your society, to the pursuit of truth and freedom (both inner and outer), will demand the rest of your lives as well."

Michael and Hermi contributed to a community of lifelong learners centered on St. John's College and its Great Books curriculum. Johnnies take seriously the school's motto:

Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque -

I make free men and women out of children by means of a book and a scale (the traditional liberal arts plus science).

Free adults - intellectually free, i.e. not bound automatically by the assumptions and prevailing opinions of our time and place. Ultimately, free politically as well. Adults ready to contribute to a free society.

St. John's challenges its students to grow into intellectual, ethical and political maturity and thereby to contribute to the societies in which they live. And it does so, not by preaching a political correctness of whatever day, but by its deep commitment to humanity and its deeply held values of truth and free inquiry.

Hermi Littleton chose generosity over bitterness, openess rather than than hatred of those who stole her family's security. The great authors of the
Western tradition challenge us to give our allegiance first and foremost to the pursuit of truth and free inquiry, stepping back from the hot issues we're caught up in at the moment.

Both examples worth considering in this contentious election year.