Humans as a whole are resistant to change. We
are troubled by it and tend to shy away from it. We do not usually enjoy it
when we are forced to face something that is outside of our routine and realm
of normalcy. When I transitioned to being on staff, I was told that the youth
director was responsible for leading Sunday Services a couple of times a year. I
didn't realize that during the hiring process, but here I am. Change and
transitions are something that we must always face in our lives. While they can be frightening, it is an essential
part of life that is inevitable. Transitions can be what you make of it. Albert
Einstein once said,
“Life
is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving
forward." You don't always know what is around the corner when you are
riding through life. It might be
something undesirable but it might be something truly remarkable.
One of the largest transitions in my life,
and one that our graduates are about to undertake, is transitioning into life
after High School. I graduated from
Lancaster High in 2005. I had plans to attend Kenyon College in Knox County to
study Biology and play football. In the
middle of summer I received my room assignment. I was to room in Mather Hall Room
101. My roommate was Terry, a football player as well, whom I had gotten to
know fairly well from college visits. It seemed that everywhere I went on a
college visit, Terry was there too. It’s really funny that we ended up as
roommates at Kenyon.
Around this time as well Facebook had just
emerged. For those of you who might not know, Facebook is a way to communicate,
find, and keep in touch with friends through social media on the Internet. Facebook now is completely different than it
was when it first went live. Today any one with an e-mail account can have a
Facebook account. When it first went
live, you were only allowed to have a Facebook account if you had a college
e-mail account. Even though Facebook is very different from then, you could still
stalk people on Facebook. So, after signing up with my Kenyon e-mail account, I
started looking at who else was going to be living on my floor in Mather. That
is when I started to get a little nervous.
My roommate, Terry, was from Poland, Ohio,
and wanted to study Biology like me. No big deal. However, most everyone else
in the hall was a little different. Dave was our immediate neighbor. He was
from New Castle, Pennsylvania, and planned on studying Political Science. He
was already beginning to become that Facebook friend that posts a lot of
Political things on Facebook.
Emma
was from Sandy Hook, Massachusetts, and wanted to study History. I am not a
history person. Lizzy was from Baltimore, Maryland, and wanted to study
Economics and was big into Yoga. I don’t do yoga.
Maria was from East Palo Alto, California,
and was another history major. Hillary on the other hand was Columbus and was
going to study Biology. Yes!
Adam was from Columbus as well and was going
to be a Women and Gender Studies Major. In 2005, I just didn’t know what that
was. Rafael was from Guatemala and was planning on studying philosophy. Cool?
Owen and Lizzy were both New Yorkers. Owen
planned on studying Political Science and Lizzy was a theater major. Don’t New
Yorkers have a reputation for not being the most pleasant individuals?
I was nervous. These were the people that I
was going to have to live with for at least a year and they are not really like
me at all. Fall quickly approached and
we all moved into the dorms. To my surprise everyone was very outgoing and
welcoming, even the New Yorkers. My expectations and thoughts on everyone had
been completely off. These were great people. We all seemed to enter the dorm
with an open mind and eagerness to get to know each other.
The bonds that we made in that first year
were something that I was not expecting to have happen. We would stay up into
the early hours in the morning talking about our lives, our goals, our
families, our views on society, religion, and politics. We used to draw our
family trees on the underneath sides of pizza boxes to explain who everyone in
our families were. We hung our pizza trees in the hallways. Even though we were all different and our
views never aligned exactly the same with one another’s, we didn’t care. We
respected each other as individuals and learned so much from each other.
Even though our lives have drifted apart, we
still utilize Facebook to keep tabs on each other.
Terry is a Physical therapist working in
Cleveland. Dave is the Director of operations at the House of Representatives.
Emma works in publications at Harvard
University. Lizzy is a yoga instructor in Atlanta.
Maria
is an underwriter in Tampa. Hillary works for Teach for America in Baltimore,
Maryland.
Adam works for Ohio Health in Columbus.
Rafael is working on his master’s degree in Philosophy at Oxford.
Owen is studying marketing in London, England,
And Lizzy is working as an actor in Brooklyn.
That summer before Kenyon, as I transitioned
into my life post High School, I was full of anxiety and stress. But it didn’t
need to be. That change in my life was coming. There wasn’t anything I could
have done to prevent it from coming. I was the one who made it stressful when
it reality the change that came was one that was positive and still affects me
today.
Tomorrow our nation stops to celebrate
Memorial Day. Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day and originated
after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers
who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century, Memorial Day had been extended
to honor all Americans who have died while in military service. Can you imagine
what it must have been like for soldiers during the civil war? What were they
feeling? What were they thinking when they were about to go into battle? One
soldier summed it up when he wrote to his wife, "Soldiering is 99% boredom
and 1% sheer terror."
Imaging, if you will, that it is the year
1863. You are 25 years old, the average age of a solider in the war. You grew
up on the family farm and have only known farm life. You were just enlisted in service via Abraham
Lincoln's draft that called on all able-bodied 18-35 year old men because you
didn't have the $300 you needed to pay to be exempt from fighting. You left
your family behind to go fight a war that you thought would only last a couple
of months.
While you are fed well in the service, you
see many of your fellow soldiers die from eating the improperly canned meat the
union supplies you. More soldiers are dying from dysentery than are being
killed in battle. You keep busy by reading newspapers, writing letters to your
loved one back home, and by playing cards, checkers and dominos. You swim in
rivers and lakes on the hot summer days and organize massive snowball fights in
the winters.
On September 30thof 1864, you hear
that Ulysses S. Grant has planned simultaneous attacks against both flanks of
General Robert E. Lee’s confederate Army in Petersburg, Virginia. Grant wants
to attack the opposite ends of Lee’s line to relieve pressure and take control
of Fort Harrison. It was rumored that General Lee had removed some of his units
giving the Union the opportunity they needed. But can this intel be trusted?
It’s
time. It’s time to march. You lace up your boots, throw on your jacket and
button it up. Slip the picture of your wife in your breast pocket. You throw
your musket over your shoulder and place your extra ammo and bayonets on your
belt, before taking your position in your squad. You begin to march. How do you
feel? What is racing through your mind?
The fear of the unknown can be terrifying,
but these brave soldiers, that we honor this weekend, faced something that not
many of us have ever, or will ever, have to face.
(Harrison /
Hattie) read the closing scripture of Luke today for the Gospel. Thursday is the day that we are to celebrate
the Ascension of Christ. The Gospel of Luke comes to a close with Jesus’
Ascension, we realize that it has an open-ended conclusion. In a reality it
ends at a beginning. It is a transition. No longer is the story about what
Jesus did during his earthly ministry. Now it the story of what he will
continue to do through God's people, whom he equipped to carry a message. That
message is not one of words alone but of life, love and light. The message is
both proclaimed and lived out before a world covered with darkness.
Right before
Jesus ascended into heaven, His disciples were charged with continuing to
carrying this message to God’s people. What do you think that this was like for
the Disciples? Their Messiah left them? They were transitioning.
As the
Gospel closes, it is important not to forget the words that came early in this
Gospel when both John the Baptist and Jesus were introduced:
And you, my child, will be called a prophet
of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him,
to give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their
sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come
to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Jesus
departed into the heaven from which he came. He did so not to leave us but to
guide us, not to disappoint us but to intercede for us. He departed with a
blessing. He departed to equip us. For those who know Him, His blessing is
always with us. So we worship Him with joy and serve Him with gladness,
continually blessing God for the gift of his Son.
Transitions
are inevitable in our lives, but if we keep God’s message of life, love, and
light, with us, we will not be alone.
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