DOWN HOME: Pomp, circumstance & a short speech

Mid-May has arrived, and the strains of Pomp and Circumstance waft across campuses from sea to shining sea. If you don't feel a tingle of excitement and anticipation watching graduates flutter around in their caps and gowns, then you just don't feel enough. May seems like New Year's on steroids, what with all those grads closing the door on one phase of their lives and embarking on yet another.

May tastes bittersweet for millions of young people. Of course, some graduates express only glee at the prospect of getting out of school, while others mourn the closure of the comfortable and the inevitable farewell to longtime friends. Most, I imagine, experience both sensations, mingling anticipation and dread.

I remember how they feel, and you probably do, too. When I graduated from high school, I could hardly wait to get to college to sample freedom, responsibility, focused education and fun, but I could hardly imagine life apart from my family. As college commencement approached, I was champing at the bit to get married in two weeks and start my career, but I grieved over saying goodbye to friends who felt like brothers. Years later, when I earned my seminary degree with a wife and baby and a new job, I just prayed I hadn't wasted three years and God would show me how to apply all that theological training in service to Christ and his church.

Now, Joanna and I?have watched our daughters graduate from high school and college. We relate naturally to parents who swell with familial pride and financial relief as the next generation completes college. In my mind, I try to imagine the commencement address I'd like graduates to hear. It would include these points:

• Thank God. An education is a precious gift, and whether you're finishing high school or earning a doctor's degree, you are blessed. What you have learned will improve your life beyond all expectations. Be grateful.

• Keep learning. If your next step is another degree or you're done with class, don't stop learning. Read. Think. Listen to people who know more than you do. Take on challenges that will force you to gather, process and analyze information. Never let your mind calcify.

• Work is sacred. If your next step is a job, apply yourself with all your energy. See your work as an act of worship, offered in praise to God who gave you strength, talent, energy, knowledge and opportunity. No job is routine or unimportant when it is offered as a sacrifice to God.

• The best is next. With Jesus as your companion, the next phase of life builds on the last. Children leave parents, friends move away from friends, adventures abound. The "unknown next" offers fascinating opportunities.

• Smell the roses. Work is important, but life is more than achievement. Love your family, enjoy your friends, worship God.