Graduation Time

A few weeks ago the editor of Fries With That went to a high school play, and I tagged along. The play was a classic – or so I was told, I'm not current on classic high school plays – entitled, 'You Can't Take it With You'. One of the main characters – actually, it was probably the main character – was a grandfather who spent his time doing the things he enjoyed. That was, among other things, attending graduations and listening to the commencement speeches.

Commencement speeches are an important – or at least a large – part of a graduation. You would think the speaker would be interested in encouraging the graduates, unlike Erica Jong who was booed and told to 'Go Home' during her speech at the College of Staten Island's commencement ceremony. She didn't quite grasp that the whole thing is about the graduates starting a new chapter of their life, not trying to continue hers.

But this is the time of commencements – whether they be college, high school, or even kindergarten – and this season of new beginnings has always meant something to me personally. No, not because I find personal satisfaction in attending graduation ceremonies like the grandfather in that high school play. It's because some sort of graduation activity seems to always interferes with my birthday.

One birthday was spent watching seniors accept awards, give speeches, and finally get that piece of paper and have the funny string thing moved to the other side of the funny hat thing. This year my birthday cake has already been delayed two days due to graduation activities, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's held off another two.

But that's alright with me, there's no hard feelings. The start of new phase in their life signals the start of a new year in mine. And I'm okay with that.

The other day I was working on a graduation gift and was looking for a photo I took a while ago. Browsing through the virtual files of my digital photos seemed to condensed the last two and a half years of my life. It's funny, some things seemed farther away then they were, while others seemed to have gone by too fast. Life's like that I guess.

As I start my new year, I look back and see things that I wish were different. There are some things I want to change. There are other things I want to do – success I want to obtain, discoveries I want to make. The past is bitter-sweet, and the future is filled with potential. I think that's also the perspective of those graduates whose ceremonies and parties have delayed my birthday cake.

But before I get too excited – before I act on the idea that I can learn from those former successes and failures and accomplish something fulfilling and meaningful in the next year of this great thing I call life – the Atheist clears his throat and evenly explains in the most reasonable tones that I am nothing more than a very complex accident. That life is nothing more that the random interaction of these accidents and that to assign any meaning to life is to simply try and convince myself that I'm more than an insignificant speck in a swirling mass of meaningless matter.

Then, as I try to grasp what he's just said the Deist interrupts and assures me that I am not just an accident. He explains that I am the creation of God – or at the very least the creation of a supernatural force. For a moment I feel better, but then he adds that all I am is a creation. That this supernatural force has no desire to be involved in the future of its creation – certainly not in my life – and not only am I an insignificant speck, but I'm an insignificant speck whose creator has no interested in. I'm much like a lump of playdough molded and then quickly discarded by a child who will never think of it again.

Adding to my dissolution is the Agnostic. He loudly proclaims that the Atheist and the Deist cannot prove they are correct. For a moment I have hope, then he adds that they cannot be proven wrong either. That you can't be certain about that kind of thing, so what's the point?

Honestly, what is the point? As I go through life I have to wonder what the person who says in their heart, 'There is no God' lives for. At best they may have a pleasant, pointless existence. At worse they'll suffer troubles and problems that are in the end meaningless. If they are right, then I would say that 'an untimely birth is better' then life.

But they are not right. As I start a new year of my life I can be excited, expectant, and hopeful because I know there is meaning to life and it comes from God. A God Who has not left His creation alone.

As this year's graduates leave their ceremonies and forget their parties, realize that perhaps the professor that gave a great moving commencement address will be the one who scoffs at your belief in God. Perhaps the successful business leader whose wit, enthusiasm, and charisma kept the entire assembly captivated will be the boss that laughs when you explain that God cares about your life.

Realize this, and understand that without a God any commencement is a farce, and life itself is nothing to be celebrated. Realize it, and stand for what you know to be true, for it is not your belief that should be questioned.

As you start a new part of your life, and I start a new year of mine, realize that without God neither of us have anything to celebrate.

Now let's see if there's time for my cake.