Graduation

Rachel, Luke, and I took my in-laws up to Nashville last weekend to see my brother-in-law, Paul, graduate from David Lipscomb University.

Y'all know I'm weird anyway, but I'm probably one of the few people in the world who really enjoys going to graduations. There's something very dignified and important about the passing of the intellectual baton from one generation of academia to the next.

The weekend was filled with lots of events from picnics to the ceremony itself, so we didn't get out to see the city much. Alhough, it didn't matter to me since I've seen Nashville plenty of times. But, it was heartening to see all these students walk proudly across the stage and grab their diplomas, not having much of an idea of what was happening to them.

I was the same way, as the rest of you probably were. I graduated, got the diploma, etc. but didn't and couldn't grasp the significance of the day until much later. What helped was something my brother told me later. He and his wife and my Mom decided to walk to the exit while we marched out, but Dad told Sam (my brother) that he wanted to wait till the graduates were gone before he left. At the bottom of the steps, Sam looked back up and saw my Dad crying. When he told me that, I realized what it meant. I saw that in the eyes of my in-laws and wife this past weekend.

We all reach those mile-markers in life when we know something big just happened, but can't understand exactly what it is. When we were baptized, graduated, had children, and other things, we knew our lives would never be the same, but not until much later did we realize how changed we were. I am honored to have seen a "new birth" after a kind and hope to know my own rebirths and their significance well.