I’m desperately trying to wrap up thoughts on high school
graduation before we move full force into the next stage of life around
here. To be honest, the thoughts are
lingering, and I’m OK with that, because if there’s one thing raising babies to
adulthood has taught me, it’s that time moves faster than we imagine.
If you’ve followed our family for long, you know we have
lived a mobile life. I have a whole lot
of thoughts on that, too, but something else I’ve learned is that if thinking
doesn’t lead to action, it eventually becomes pointless. This is not a popular idea for someone who
loves philosophy. Whatever. I live with the tension.
But as I sit here, this morning, pondering the unusual
graduation my oldest two children just experienced, I want to flesh it out a
bit further. There were some
well-intentioned (I hope) questions surrounding this event, much like there
have been some questions surrounding their entire lives. I want to be clear that I don’t feel like I
owe anyone an explanation to the question, “Why did you do it this way?” Except maybe me. Can you owe yourself an explanation?
Here’s the bottom line.
When we packed up a U-Haul trailer full of trophies and pictures and
memorabilia and proceeded to cart it across the country for a total of three
graduation parties, it made sense, because we’ve been carting these kids around
the country since 2001 (when we first moved Seth, age 14 months, and Grace, age
4 weeks from Michigan to Colorado). For
as many drawbacks as have come with this mobile life (and there have been
many), there is also one undeniable advantage: They have people everywhere!
Road Trip Stage One: We started where we are. We have been here in Massachusetts for a
little over 10 months now. Moving
frequently has taught me that every move is different, and some places become
home more quickly than others (also, some never do, and that’s OK too). I can’t speak for my whole family, but some
of us have had conversations about how strangely easy this move felt. We’ve had moments when we’re standing in the
ocean and wondering why it doesn’t seem weird that we live on the coast. But it doesn’t… seem weird… It seems right. I love the people here. I love the people at our local church, who
have welcomed us with open arms. I love
the people at BU. I love the people at
other local churches who have invited me to have coffee and preach from their
pulpits. If you know me or have read me,
you know my ultimate dream lies about 2700 miles west of here, but I also like
it here enough to stay. It did not take
long to feel like home. But that was a
long aside to the point. We started where we are. There’s really nothing else to do,
friends. We have to start where we
are. This was a literal statement, but
it’s also a figurative one. Living in
community with the people you are actually with is something of a lost art
these days. The people here make it
easy. This was the only appropriate
place to first break cake and pizza together for a celebration that culminated
right here.
Yet there is also something incredibly beautiful about the
connectedness we have that allows us to hold onto all the people we have ever
known and loved.[i] So, Road Trip Stage Two brought us “home” to
family. I struggled to imagine what
graduation would look like for Seth and Grace without extended family. It was unreasonable to expect people to
travel so far. And so, when my parents
graciously offered to host an open house, there was no compelling reason to say
no. In fact, I was quite relieved (in
part because this allowed so many more people to share in the celebration, but
also in part because I was finishing up year one of my PhD program, and this
took a little bit of planning pressure off me).
The group of people who showed up there was eclectic and incredibly
appropriate. I expected grandparents,
aunts and uncles and cousins (although some of them still had to make quite a
trek), but the really fun part (at least for me) was watching the friends show
up. And it wasn’t just Seth and Grace’s
friends. It was also my parents’ friends
(some I have known my whole life and some I had never before met) and my friends. There
is something strangely binding about sharing spaces intergenerationally for
cyclical celebrations and about enduring, childhood friendships. There were two particularly powerful moments
for me that solidified my gladness regarding this second party. The first was when we were setting up. I was fairly absorbed in my own tasks, when I
turned and saw Grace placing her quizzing trophies in exactly the same place
mine sat twenty-two years ago at my own open house. She had no way to know she was repeating
history. The second was when my dearest
remaining high school friend showed up, and as we sat and chatted for awhile I
was struck by how we had done this before.
Life events are so strangely and beautifully interconnected.
And then, finally, Road Trip Stage Three took us to the
place Seth and Grace will always remember as their childhood home. This is where we held the actual graduation
ceremony, along with their baptism. Even
more than the “trophy-mobile…” this may have been the most perplexing piece of
our week long rite of passage. Why did
we do it this way? The answer is
complicated (much like life), and believe me, we put a lot of thought into how
to best engage in this sacramental act in a way that was genuine, orthodox,
reasonable, responsible, and fully reliant on Gods work through the sacrament
of baptism. I feel like there are people
who make judgment calls on the way others worship based solely in rubrics,
facts, and figures, and as a liturgist I have to admit that I kind of “get it.” But narrative matters, too. A lot.
And so, when I looked out on the people who had gathered and realized
that this was, indeed, the village who raised these kids, I knew we made the
right call. I said it then, and I will
defend it again and again, if I ever have to: I’m not sure there have ever been
two children who belonged more fully to the church than Seth and Grace
Michaels. Clearly, I think there’s a “most
right” order in which to do things, but I also have to remember that I haven’t
always known everything (and I still don’t, and I expect I never will), and we
can only do the very best we can do in any given moment. That Seth and Grace were baptized in the
presence of the community that loved and nurtured them in life and faith is
significant. It’s surely not the only
way this could have gone down, but it was right. And it was also confirmation of God’s grace
upon grace upon grace which manifests itself in ways we understand and ways we
don’t.
So… skip ahead a couple weeks to orientation at Olivet. I regret that I wasn’t there, but Phil sent
some pictures that further reinforced some of my thinking on initiation rites
and the unique path my children (now entering adulthood) have taken. There was an event at orientation during
which all of the incoming Freshmen were given ONU sweatshirts to put on, as
they crossed a stage. Much like I would
tell you my kids belonged to the church long before there was an official seal
of initiation, I would also have to admit to you that Olivet has called to them
for over a decade, and they have belonged there, too. But as I was looking through these pictures,
I noticed something that physically embodied this belonging theory of mine. Kid after kid is crossing that stage and
pulling on that sweatshirt over their clothing, marking themselves as a
Freshman at Olivet, literally covering over a part of who they were before this
moment. And then I look at the pictures of
my kids, and they are pulling on their sweatshirts right over their Olivet
t-shirts.[ii] And honestly, I laughed… and then I cried… as
I thought to myself about the layers upon layers of personhood that have been
consistent for them, even in a really jarring, itinerant life.
If part of following God’s call means dragging your kids all
over the country for the ride, then you’d better be willing to drag them all
over the country for the party, too. And
diligently check to see just how faithfully God is layering on the grace.
L.
