Second Thoughts - Commencement

Greetings Dear Reader,

Sometimes I will end the day with thoughts that are important to get out.  Usually I just write them and put them in my journal folder.  I have chosen that on occasion I will share them with you Dear Reader.

Today I end the day feeling quite happy and quite sad all at once.  There are those who will understand these contradictory elements in my persona.  Most of them are teachers who have been doing the long labor of teaching for some years.  Today was commencement for the end of our winter term.  We hold commencement ceremonies four times each year. 

 

I would never detract from the joy and celebration that my students have earned from the completion of this process.  They have struggled and sacrificed to achieve their places of honor in the procession.  Still as each of them proceeds across the stage and is handed a diploma I feel joy and loss.

Most of them will leave to never return.  One of the costs that we pay for a more modern mode of education is that the halls are no so hallowed.  The alma mater is not so cherished.  There is not the social tie that exists at the places where I earned my baccalaureate degree.  Most of my students are on to jobs that will keep them busy and they deserve it.

Tonight I said goodbye to eleven cherished souls who have worked hard to become more than they were two years ago when they arrived in my classroom.  Monday I will start the cycle again with a fresh crop of eager souls hoping to find the path to a better future.  Still as the years slip through the pinch I grow sad for the one who have departed and I see no more.  I love them all.  I celebrate them all.  I miss them all.  Such is the lot of those who launch the newly trained.  So I say to my graduates "Farewell wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."