Five Years Each

Five Years.

Transitions and ceremony are important aspects of all of our lives. I was talking with a good friend the other day, who was telling me that she is not that interested in a wedding. To me the marriage is not about either the certificate or the ceremony. I do believe that both are important. The certificate is like a legal deceleration stating to everybody that two people are married. The ceremony is also important in that it is a public display of of what is going on in two people’s hearts and a public showing of the certificate. While the most important component of the marriage is the two people and their lives lived together, the other parts are significant.

In the western culture, we don’t truly have a ceremony to depict a young person’s transition into adulthood. Many cultures used to have different ceremonies. Last year, I was hoping to attend one of Fr. Richard Rohr’s Men’s Rites of Passage I will be participating in my own right of passage today. Graduation from college is probably the closest ceremony that we have depicting somebodies transition into adulthood.

Today, I will graduate with my master’s degree in social work. It is a pretty amazing story that while it took five years to earn my high school diploma, I will have earned my master’s degree in the same amount of time. I have had a ton of different challenges, changes, and other stuff happen over the last many years and find myself lucky to be where I’m at.

While I am still not exactly sure what I will be doing next year this time… I do have have some ideas.