The Selfish Student

This isn't about Becca and Chiso, the two young ladies who are pictured above. No, it's about the times when I didn't practice what I, now at least, preach. You see, when I was the varsity girls' basketball coach at Friendship Christian School in Tennessee and Westbury Christian School, we put up a nameplate with the word UNSELFISH at the top of the locker room door. The players would touch it when exiting as a reminder to put others first. I've found that gets more important as we get older. But in retrospect, I've learned what I thought at the time was being unselfish was likely quite the opposite.

I was in our church office this morning working on funding relief for our Vietnamese brethren who I will dearly miss this summer.  While seated in the office of Ann Stone, our church accountant who handles my mission funds, I was privy to her conversation with Colin Elk, our worship leader. Their discussion centered on how our congregation is going to handle our special Senior Sunday, a service in which we traditionally honor those from our youth group about to  walk across the stage at their respective schools, passing from being youngsters to more or less the adult world. It's tricky- there is no protocol for this, an event which has always been live. We are dealing with it at school as well. Our WCS Senior Chapel has been on the calendar for tomorrow afternoon for a year. But our church auditorium where both ceremonies were to take place will be eerily silent both Wednesday afternoon and Sunday morning. There will be video presentations online which is what Ann and Colin were talking about. It will be wonderful and amazing but due to the world condition, it won't be quite the same. My guess is there will be tears shed. I'm also guessing a fair share of the tears will belong to moms and dads.

What I say next is from the perspective of a fairly extreme introvert which is not an excuse. When I was a senior in high school in Nebraska, I didn't want to get any announcements for graduation. My folks insisted I get at least some for grandparents. They wanted to have a celebration- I really wanted nothing to do with it. I graduated from York High on a Sunday afternoon and several people came over- that was it. Fast forward six years. I was graduating with my Masters degree from Harding University in Arkansas. My folks, who by then lived in Lubbock in west Texas, had already watched me graduate from high school, York College, and Harding with a BA. I just assumed they didn't want to drive fifteen hours to watch me repeat the process so I told them I wasn't going to walk for graduation. They accepted it; after all, they knew me better than anyone else. I found out years later, they really wanted to come but someone denied them that opportunity. That someone was me.

Usually this time of year, I give a speech to my students about doing things because it means something to their folks even if they aren't thrilled about the idea. Obviously, I couldn't dispense those words of wisdom this May. My folks knew I didn't like a fuss made, going back to early childhood and they, being unselfish, did not insist. I wish I could have seen that earlier. Some of our kids get it, though not with graduations. Their parents take losing a ball game much harder than their offspring athlete does. My parents didn't know sports but they did know school as well as anybody. They knew what these milestones would mean- I didn't. I regret that I robbed them of some of their joy and a chance to celebrate their son.

As we get older, we start to see ripple effects from innocent or unavoidable acts with unintended consequences. One of the wonderful things about our Senior Chapel is the passing of the flame. Each senior has a lit candle and meets a designated junior in the middle of the stage. The 12th grader  symbolically lights the 11th grader's candle, and walks out after symbolically passing the torch to the new seniors. Two weeks ago, I had a heartbreaking note from one of my junior boys who is from another country. He told me he was devastated that he would not get to participate in this tradition. He even told me the senior young lady who was going to be his partner and he had waited since he was a freshman for that moment. You know, it never occurred to me up to that moment how far reaching these loss of rites of passing are. Johnny Nash sang, "I can see clearly now......" So can I but it's too late to tell Mom and Dad. Maybe I'll light a candle in their memory. If I was the commencement speaker this year, something I've done twice, my message would be simple. Love your parents. There would be some stories and quotes and Biblical admonitions but it would come down to those three little words; love your parents. The time will come when there is no time.

Applicable quote of the day:If someone comes to you with, 'It's my kid's graduation,' you don't tell them, 'Sorry, you can't go to that.' You just don't do that. You figure out some other way. 
Bob Iger


God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org