Last night I watched the last of our parish's seniors walk across a stage to receive a diploma and be launched off into the great beyond. In the past nine years I have heard thousands of names read, listened to countless principals speak, and handed out over one hundred lei to Church of Our Saviour students moving from high school to something else.
Graduation does an amazing job at making someone feel like they have completed the hard stuff and are moving on to greener pastures. Last night, as one of the adult speakers noted the great achievement that the graduates would 'never have to take another SOL test again' my teacher heart sank at the state of our education system and standardized testing and my minister heart broke open with the knowledge that an SOL test would be a welcome challenge to what lies ahead.
We have somehow convinced ourselves and our children that when we complete 'the thing' or win 'the prize' that we've reached a new level and life will be better/easier/different/more meaningful. There are two flaws in this logic:
1. Lots of people who don't complete 'the thing' or win 'the prize' do just fine. They live full and meaningful lives. This is for another post another day but I can't not say it. Some kiddos will never graduate from high school because... LIFE. Sometimes, barely making it is more of a success than finishing in the top of your class. If you've ever barely made it, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.
2. We never get to a place where the boxes are checked and the road is easy. While we come to places of transition that are rich with possibilities, each hold their own set of struggles and disappointments. I remind students this when they are looking at their post-high school options. There is no right or wrong choice... every choice can be both... it is what you do once you arrive in your choice that matters.
What I really want our graduating/finishing/getting their GED/waiting-to-hear-if-they-made-it seniors to know that no one tells them at graduation is...
No one cares what grades you got. Sure, if you are my surgeon I'm pretty invested in your success in residency. If you are my mechanic (who I see far more than my surgeon) I am not really concerned about your 11th grade biology grade. I have never had someone ask about my high school GPA since high school. What seems like the biggest thing will someday be a distant memory.
Subsequently, no one cares what you look like. You may think they do because you hear them commenting on the appearance of others (note: sadly, this never changes) but in reality it is only as a marker of their feelings about their own bodies and their own appearance and not a reflection of how they feel about you. Taking a flawless senior picture in a wildflower field can not save you from a diagnosis or a layoff. Finding the ways that you see worth and beauty in yourself when you wake up each morning can change everything.
Things will fall apart. You will fail. You will let people down. Someone you love fiercely will die. The way you thought things would be on some basic and fundamental level will be shattered. Also, something amazing and surprising will happen that seems to fall out of the sky. The sheer reality of age and time means that more of life happens. Your capacity for love and loss grows and the stakes do as well. It's the difference between failing an SOL and failing to pay the rent.
And each of these things... every single one of them... they are universal. No diploma or cord will protect you. You and I have been fed a lie that if we achieve more then we are spared.
Sweet babies, none of us are spared.
Life is hard and cruel and wonderful and amazing to each and every one of us. For years you have been put into lists. Ranked. Chosen. Not chosen. Now you are stepping into a space where the units you have been measured by no longer exist. It's scary and disorienting. It's also liberating and empowering. As followers of Christ we know that the Spirit of God is alive in each of us, giving us different and wonderful gifts,
There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts." -1 Corinthians 12:12-14
You are no longer asked to pass the same test, you are invited to be whatever it is that makes the Spirit come alive and flow through you. There is no finish line or trophy but there is joy in community and connection in the pain and a loving God who appears in Her people everywhere you look.
The best and the worst are yet to come.
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