Graduation

Graduation. It's that time of year! My niece graduated from high school this past weekend and is, hopefully, headed to the US Coast Guard Academy. I have three youth graduating from high school this coming week. My son, who originally planned to graduate this spring, is now on hold until December. (Why can't parents somehow download into their children's brains the vagaries of academic advisors and how to avoid 'mis-advisement'? Guess we each have to learn the hard way!)

Of course, the traditional speech which goes along with graduation almost invariably includes "it's an ending, it's a beginning". At a seminary graduation I attended, the seminary president noted that graduation was a 'little escaton', a small ending as opposed to The Escaton, the starting of the End Times. That's true, but there seems to be something missing from both assessments. I've been through four graduations of my own, and one with my son, and have only now made the connection that graduation is not only an ending. It's a completion.

There is a distinction. Endings may happen whether planned or not, whether anything has been accomplished or not. For those who walk the boards of graduation, who earn the right to toss their pointed mortarboards in the air, it has taken at least a certain level of work to meet the requirements of diploma or degree. Thus one has completion! Accomplishment! TADA!!

The ceremony is usually followed by a headlong rush into the next thing, into beginnings. I'd like to suggest that one take a few hours, days, weeks and hold onto that sense of completion. There's something quite satisfying about reaching a goal after a long period of time. I wish I'd taken the time to enjoy reaching my goals!