Graduation Reflection

On Sunday we will gather on the lawn of a different university to watch our daughter graduate.  This will be the last time for such a ritual in our family as both sons received their diplomas a few years ago.  Like most parents I have very mixed feelings as this milestone approaches.  On a very practical level, I am relieved and overjoyed that we no longer have the financial burden of helping with tuition costs.  Our children know that any graduate school expenses will be theirs to carry.

However, at a heart level, I am feeling some sadness as this marks the end of an era in our family.  Whether watching my own “lifeblood” journey through higher education or walking alongside students who are “on loan” to us from their own families, some lessons remain the same.  As we approach our own commencement ceremonies at Lynchburg College the words of the poet Kahlil Gibran seem especially appropriate and timely:

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

As our daughter prepares to walk across the stage on Sunday, and as Lynchburg College’s Class of 2012 prepares to accept their degrees, I hope that all graduates will feel that the bows of family and college have been stable enough to provide them security but flexible enough to allow them to fly.

Peace,

Anne