Walking Through Life

We open our eyes to a world that almost assaults us with its realities:
Color, texture, size, distance, temperature, solidity, animation….
What is more real to our infant eyes, color or sound? Softness or cool? Does our first sensation, our first awareness, our first response determine anything, or nothing, of our lives? As much as we experience, so many are the paths we might walk through life.

We learn to walk and go to school. We learn hopscotch and Miss Mary Mac and math and games and sports. We learn to make friends. We learn to be afraid. We learn to catch the ball. We learn to spell. We walk into and around and from school and friendships and teachers we love or not…and we are choosing paths, or maybe they, the paths are choosing us. Long Division says “I want you!” And Reading says, “No, I want you!” And Camp or the summer Arts program says “Let’s share.” And at church, you’re beginning to learn long words like “inherent worth and dignity of every person,” which seems to mean that no one picks on anyone else, as we walk through life.

What if everything chooses us? The dog or cat or hamster chooses you to love it. Your friends choose you to love them. Your teachers choose you to learn or slack off or tease or get kicked out of class. Yeah, that definitely was your teacher’s fault. Soccer chooses you. Or painting. Or the French Horn—that long, elegant, note sweeping out of those gleaming circles—that called you to play it, as you walk through life.

Now Physics is choosing you—and your choice is whether to come when it calls you. Or English, or Spanish, or Choir or Shop. Now boys or girls are calling you, but in new ways, to a new kind of relationship. Gosh, they’re cute. Now justice is calling you to make your school or your neighborhood better, to defend that person who needs your help, to share what you have with those who need it. And Youth Group is calling you to slouch on a couch and paint a roof tile and begin to speak your inner truths and live our faith with each other and inspire the adults with the beauty you are filled with, beauty you often don’t see yourself, as you walk through life.

And now you’re beginning to live, to know yourself, to fly. Many things are still calling you. Maybe color is calling you to art. Maybe sound is calling you to music. Maybe animation is calling you to drama. Maybe the descendents of Long Division are still singing to you, and you’re going to be an engineer. Long after you lost her, your cat is choosing you to be a veterinarian. Your French Horn is a little the worse for wear from that time it fell out of the car and the case broke, but it’s good enough for you still. Play on. Sing on. Walk on. With abiding confidence and joy we send you walking on through your life.