Sermon: Commencement For Caterpillars

[powerpress]http://www.fuub.org/home/home/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Commencement-For-Caterpillars.m4a[/powerpress]

An hour before my husband Jeff’s high school graduation, he was nowhere to be found. He had left the house that morning, informing his parents that he would not be going to his graduation. He had just gotten the news that a friend of his had been in a terrible accident and was very badly hurt. Jeff had no interest in sitting through some endless ceremony, listening to maudlin speeches, and feeling sad. So he went out and found a nice tree to sit under instead along with his girlfriend at the time.

 

Meanwhile, two friends of his stopped by his house to pick him up. They learned from Jeff’s mother that he was planning to skip his graduation and she didn’t know where he was. But they quickly guessed where he would have gone. They drove over to his special, favorite tree, and sure enough, there he was, lying on his back in the grass, gazing at the sky. Jeff looked over and saw his two friends approaching. He thought to himself, “They’re going to try to talk me into going. Fat chance!” But they didn’t. They simply picked him up. One grabbed him by the ankles, the other by the arms and they carried him to the car. They said, “You idiot. You’re not missing your high school graduation. And your mother is in tears, by the way.” And so it was that Jeff attended his graduation after all.

 

I can certainly relate to what Jeff was feeling. Some of the most boring hours of my life have been the hours that I spent in the three graduations that I’ve been a part of. I remember the sinking feeling each time when I realized that yes, they really are going to call the name of every single one of the millions of people here and wait for them to walk across the stage to get their diploma. They’re really, actually going to do that. And my big moment will be being handed a piece of paper. Please tell me I’ll get these hours back at the end of my life?

 

I bet some of you feel the same way about these things. And some of us love these things. Either way, we do them. And generally, when we look back, we’re glad that we did. Graduations, bridging ceremonies, new member ceremonies, weddings, memorial services. They mark a moment of transition – a moment when we are changing from one thing to another. They say to us, “okay, from now on, you’re not what you were before, you’re something new. You’re no longer a youth, you’re a young adult. Boom. You’re no longer a visitor to First U; you’re a member of the community. Boom.”

 

But we all know that it doesn’t exactly work that way. We don’t become something new all at once, at any one moment, one day, even one year. Almost everything is a gradual process. Those of you who joined the congregation today – Diana, Daniel, Sofia, Matt, Frank, Kristina, Jason, Robert, Chelsea, Clare, Matt, Kermit, and Lindsey –

your process of becoming part of this community started long before today and will continue long after today. Those of you who are bridging – Ethan, Marco, and Ben – your process of growing from a youth to a young adult started long before today and will continue long after today. And it’s always been like that. When it’s your birthday, you know that you’re not suddenly a year older. It’s so annoying (at least it used to be to me) when people say, “So how does it feel to be 9?” And you want to say, “It feels exactly how it felt to be 8.”

 

But think about a life without any ceremonies. Without any way to celebrate growing up or changing. Think about how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. It’s a process. It takes over a week, which, for a caterpillar is a long time. It happens so gradually, I wonder if the caterpillar is even aware of the change as it’s happening. I wonder if it senses some magical moment inside the chrysalis when suddenly it gets its butterfly soul. And by the time it’s a butterfly, I wonder if it even remembers having been a caterpillar. It’s kind of sad to think that it would go through this incredible change without even realizing it. It’s kind of sad that the transition is never marked or celebrated. No balloons, no streamers, no new butterfly song. The caterpillar is just literally hanging under a tree with its girlfriend, not even knowing what it’s missing.

 

There’s a reason why Jeff’s mother was crying when she thought he wouldn’t be at his graduation. He would have still graduated either way, just like the caterpillar will turn into a butterfly. The 8-year-old would become a 9-year-old. The youth would become a young adult. The visitor to First U would become a member of the community. But for us humans, it’s an important thing that we pick a day and we celebrate the transition. Even though we all know it’s arbitrary, the piece of paper that you get means nothing, something would be lost if we didn’t mark it. When you mark the change, you know that it’s really happening. You get to look around and say to yourself and your friends and family, “Wow, look where I am now. I’m growing. I’m changing. I’m doing alright for myself.” And you can look back on your life later and say, “it was sometime around then that I became the next version of myself.” Ceremonies give us a way to plant a stake in the ground, even though the ground is swirling around us. And those stakes line up across the expanse of time, and our lives are almost like suspension bridges hanging from those stakes – one to the next to the next.

 

Our ceremonies don’t make the change happen, but they show us that it’s happening; they make the changes feel real. And we do often walk away afterwards feeling a little different, a little older, a little wiser, a little more connected to the communities of our future. And so to those of you who are joining First U today, I offer blessings of that connection with this community of your future. May this become a home for you; may you feel supported and loved and challenged and a little changed by your time here over the years. And to those of you who are bridging today, entering young adulthood, may you know that our hearts are with you everywhere you go. May the ceremony today celebrate your growth (not begin or end it) and may it fill you up with the loving energy of this community that you can tuck away and carry with you everywhere you go.

 

Today, Jeff looks back and is glad that his friends made him go to his high school graduation. To miss it would have been to miss something important. The speeches turned out to not be maudlin, but actually meaningful. The event as a whole was meaningful. And it was not about getting the diploma. In fact, when he walked across the stage that day and received the folder that was supposed to contain his diploma, the diploma wasn’t there. Instead there was a note that he owed a $10 library book fine and that he would receive his diploma once he paid it. And yet he graduated, he grew, he changed, as we all do over the years, each in our chrysalis, whether we like it or know it or not.