Graduation...

"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ." -1 Corinthians 12:12

"We can't be copying no one else's style. We have our own style. Let me tell ya something Rasta, I didn't come up here to forget who I am and where I come from. And the best I can be is Jamaican. If we look Jamaica, walk Jamaica, talk Jamaica, and is Jamaica, then we sure as heck better bobsled Jamaica." -Sanka, Cool Runnings

Every year I get to go to a lot of high school graduations. It's such a thrill to see my teenagers ending one chapter of life and starting a new one.

But as you might imagine, after a few two-and-a-half hour ceremonies, they start to blur together and get a little long. That's not to say they are insignificant or that they aren't incredibly exciting when your students cross that stage, but all the speeches and the awards and the special honors get a little tedious sometimes.

Because of this, I've become a little bit numb to graduation speeches. After all, they're fairly consistent and repetitive. But last May, I heard one that has stuck with me.

At a private school's graduation last year, a speaker with remarkable credentials was invited to take the podium. I was interested in his many titles and honors, but figured his speech would be one of those "Go out and make us all proud" bits. I was wrong.

He opened, "It's common in speeches such as these to tell you graduates to go out and follow your passions and be whoever you want to be. That's not what I'm going to tell you. Because that is a story about just you, and nothing in life is just about you."

I was struck. My ears perked up and I nudged forward a little further in my seat to catch the rest of his address a bit more clearly.

We teach our children and our teenagers to be whatever they want to be. We teach them to break through barriers and not to let anyone tell them they can't do something they set their minds to. We teach them to be themselves and not let anyone else try to define them.

But I wonder if it's ever occurred to us that as we try to express ourselves and be the best we can be that the best life we can find is the life when we are all at our best, when we're not competing and leaving some behind, when we're thriving because others are thriving.

I think it's important that we each have unique fingerprints. Even identical twins have different fingerprints! We are not exactly like anyone else. That's not the way God made us (and thank God for that!)

We are all unique. We all have unique passions and gifts. We all have unique smiles and laughs and tears. We all have unique desires and plans. And we all have .1% unique DNA!

That's right. That means that 99.9% of us is EXACTLY like every one of our neighbors. We are made of the same ilk. All of us.

Paul has a great image for this: a body (how original!) But seriously, it's a really neat metaphor. You see, some of us are eyes. Some are toes. Some are fingernails. (For the record, I'd hate to be the belly-button.) But at the end of the day, we are all connected. We all rely on one another. Our success and our failure are tied together. If one part of the body is sick or one part of the body is struggling, it is our struggle. If one part of the body is celebrating, we all celebrate.

The world has become more isolated and individual. We fight conformity and universality. We want to be our own people. And being your own person is good! That's how God made you. But you are your best when your own person is working with others to make the very best us that we can be. Success is not its most successful if only some get to experience it. Love is not its fullest if some get left out. Celebrations are not their most extravagant if everyone isn't invited.

So may you go and find out exactly what God made you for. May you find the passions and joys and gifts that God placed in your fingerprint that bring your to life. And my you take those things that make you you and add them to the things that make him him and that make her her to make us the very most alive version of us we can be. That's what we were created for. That's when the body is healthiest. And may we never leave out the belly-button!

forever unfinished...