In the same way that even someone with two left feet can enjoy watching Fred Astaire glide across the stage with Ginger Rogers, I appreciate hearing a great sermon or an intelligent lecture or a moving speech.  (Connoisseurs are not required to be good cooks themselves.)  Commencement season usually brings a new crop of tasty talks to enjoy.

In the last couple weeks, I have attended a couple of ‘moving up day’ ceremonies for my grandkids as they progress from elementary to middle school.  Not surprisingly, these ceremonies lacked the kind of inspirational or touching speeches that go viral on social media.  The ceremonies themselves were pretty much what you would expect them to be, which is to say, they were delightful for those of us with a rooting interest in the lives of the ones being celebrated but otherwise there wasn’t a lot to commend them as entertainment.

Sitting in the audience, waiting to applaud the genius and charm of my grandchildren while politely acknowledging their duller classmates, it occurred to me that it would be great if we had more moving up day ceremonies.

To be clear, I am not eager for more opportunities to sit in a hot school auditorium, politely pretending other people’s kids and grandkids are as great as mine.

What I’m looking for are visible signs of the endings and beginnings that occur in our lives.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a ceremony to mark the day you left that old resentment behind?  Who wouldn’t appreciate receiving a certificate and handshake to mark the day you could begin trusting that person who disappointed you in the past?  How about a round of applause to commemorate the day you dared take a step despite that long-held fear?

If I were a more optimistic person, I might conclude by saying everyday is moving up day, but that’s just not true.  Our real moments of breaking through and venturing forth, the times when we exercise courage and grace to let go of the pain and anger of the past come all too infrequently.  We should mark those days.  We should celebrate them.  We should be mindful and thankful when they come.  Don’t be that kid who decided to skip their graduation ceremonies. 

And in the meantime, while you wait for the next moving up day, pay attention.  You don’t want to miss the corner you’re about to turn. 

Prayer:  Thanks for this new day, this new chance, this ending, this beginning.  Help me mark it, remember it, and move on from here in a new way.  Amen.

“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19)