Yes that's the man. William Jefferson Clinton was in town today to receive an honorary doctorate from McGill and I was lucky enough to understand someone who had a ticket and was capable to get another. This event took place under the radar or so it seemed; there was one small TV lorry from CTV near the structure very little press inside no crowds a relatively small contingent of Secret Service six or seven unmarked black vehicles. I had the impression that the event had been managed very carefully. We arrived about 40 minutes early and judging from past experience with things love presidential debates or candidate appearances in New Hampshire I had expected a long wait before being cleared for entry and even debated whether I should bring my cell phone let alone a camera. In the end I took a small bandbag with both in it except I needn't have worried: there was no gauntlet of security to go through no metal detectors that I could see not even a handbag check. It's harder to get into any art gallery in a major American town than it was to get into this event. We gave our names at a table received our tickets and walked into the auditorium along with about a thousand other people and that was that.

The low-key scene at the back door behind the speech

Clinton's plane was late and the master of ceremonies informed us we'd have an supplementary ten minute wait. But soon we heard the sound of bagpipes and a solitary piper in full regalia entered the auditorium followed by the chancellor of the university and the board of trustees and other officials all in their pretty red robes and soft black academic caps along with the guest of honor. It wasn't a huge room so we weren't like well far from the aisle or the podium and at the first glimpse of that utterly familiar face I felt a quizzical sense of comfortable recognition: yes that's Bill Clinton we're in the same room after all these years how bizarre but how...normal it feels. I've followed his career listened to his speeches with attention and admiration watched him on television so many times and for such a large chunk of my life that he does feel familiar. All the mannerisms I've come to know were in evidence: the hang of the head while listening to the preface the wry little grin the way he looks up and suddenly moves from introspective listening to appointment and then to that disarming charm and charisma. A flawed man with a very large heart and a correct talent for connection. Someone who may even do more as a past-president than he was able to accomplish in the office itself.

Since I was little I've been interested in political speeches sermons orations and the people behind them. A part of me I guess has often wanted to do that myself but (although my mother hoped I might) I didn't go into politics nor did I follow in the footsteps of my paternal grandfather and uncle and go into the ministry. I remember what must have ben a formativ time listening to Jack and Bobby Kennedy and to Martin Luther King when I was between 9 and 12 and talking with my parents about what they had said and what made them such gifted orators. In the intervening years few people came close to those standards - Jessie Jackson sometimes; William Sloane Coffin; Mario Cuomo was a reluctant but gifted speaker. But Clinton had it - perhaps not the ringing memorable lines that will go down in the history books and enter the anthologies of quotations but definitely the gift for connecting with an audience and saying real things that created a movement of the heart so that I often found myself changed through the course of his speeches. What also astounded me was his capacity to talk extemporaneously and compellingly and with great relaxation about the most complex subjects - I've never seen anyone including Obama who does it better.

Today was no different. After the degree was conferred Clinton went to the podium and proceeded to speak without notes for through an hour. It was World Food Day and he talked about farming and soil and feeding the world; he also talked about AIDS and malaria about lowering the cost of medication and delivering it to the people who need it. That's the job he's involved in now. But mostly he talked throughout his wide-ranging report filled with stories of people he'd met and the initiatives they've taken about finding and nurturing hope in ourselves and the crucial need to move forward as a world together. He pointed out that intelligence and dreams exist in human beings everywhere. What we tend to have and a lot of people don't have are the systems that let for sample medicine to be delivered to those who need it. "It's not like a food drop" he said. "You can't airlift medicine to Africa and drop it into a field." Putting together the cash products - often innovative ones - and people and building systems for delivery and then for self-sufficiency is what matters to him. He also extolled the internet as a means by which people can multiply their own power and actually make things occur whether that's tsunami relief or much smaller projects that require a collective spirit. He spoke about things like the postal code lottery in the Netherlands wher epeople purchase lottery tickets but the prize doesn't go to an individual but is split between all the buyers in a postal code - with the profits going to humanitarian work. 'What a different mindset that comes from!" he remarked. Or the small tax of 1 or 2 euros on international airline tickets first imposed in France and then joined by other countries which has generated huge sums of money; his organization has been able to use some of the money raised in this way to lower the cost of AIDS medicine from $600 to $60 per individual in the African countries where he works.

"What I think has persisted in Canada but been lost in my country until the past ten years or so when it's slowly started to come back" he said "is a spirit of communalism - a sense that we need each other and we need to move forward together." That's what his speech was about at heart and it was one of the best I've ever heard him give. I wish the religions could do as well as this at touching that flare of love and hope that I trust burns within each of us. Bill Clinton didn't mention God but it was a deeply spiritual speech and I was not the only one with tears in my eyes as we stood to applaud at the end of it.

Riding the metro on the way home I caught sight of my face in the darkened window. I saw the reflection of a thin woman getting older with lines round her eyes and the strong feeling of optimism and inspiration that had buoyed me through the cold streets gave way a little. I felt my heart sink. "You're too old" that demon voice whispered. "You've missed your opportunity it's too late to make a difference to370 do anything new." But then I saw another face in my mind. "You idiot" said the angel on my other shoulder. "He's older than you are his face is full of years full of sadness and hope and determination not that different from yours. He's not going to give up and neither are you. It's never too late."

I'm so grateful to have had this unusual opportunity and gift today and happy I had the chance to stand up and applaud one of the great human beings of our time. I seem forward to hearing what he'll do over the next years and hope I can retain the encouragement I felt from his words. As another very thoughtful friend once told me "It doesn't thing so much where you go in where you put your power so long as you go in somewhere." In other words act.