While many of us wait for warmer days and real spring to arrive, many seniors in high school are waiting to hear about where they will find themselves on life’s great adventure. One of the things I like to tell juniors in high school to do, is to get their story straight. Most of them don’t know that as soon as they enter their senior year, every adult will ask them, “So where are you going to college?” Or “What are you doing after high school?”
For many young people, this is one of the biggest decisions of their life thus far. And the reality is, it is the beginning of a series of questions that family and friends are going to inquire about for years ahead. For once they are in college, many will begin asking, “So what are you majoring in?” And then in short order comes the question, “So what do you plan to do with that degree?” After this comes the future family line of questions, “When are the two of you getting married?” Which then is almost always followed by, “When are you planning on having children?” Only to shortly be followed by, “How many kids are you planning on having?”….Years pass and then the questions begin again, “When are you going to retire?” … “Do you plan to spend part of the year somewhere warm?”
“Loving Mystery in who we live and move and have our being, we give thanks that you continually open our minds with ever-deepening questions and open our hearts to ever greater depths. Help us see in your ‘deep but dazzling darkness’ the love that sustains all things and give us courage to let go of our lust for certainty and embrace the risk of trust.”
This prayer, written by Grace Cathedral Dean Emeritus, The Very Rev. Alan Jones for the book Journey with Mark, I have found helpful in a life filled with questions about what is next. I also believe it provides a helpful frame as we begin to enter into the Holy Week experience… a time unquestionably filled with more questions than answers. And yet, Jones suggests in his prayer that when we let go of “our lust for certainty and embrace the risk of trust” we truly do begin to experience the “Loving Mystery”.
May your Holy Week be filled with the assurance of our Lord’s never ending presence.