Soulful Muse

The month of May rolls around and the roles of college students changes from those who’s absorbed to now those who will share.  Many will look for jobs, others may have secured theirs and still others may be prone to further their education or just wonder about it at a nearby Starbucks.  This is the speech I’ll never be invited to give.

“Graduates, faculty, trustees, family and most importantly parents.  Thomas Wolfe was right, you can’t go home again.  You’ve lived in a home created just for you for some 22 years but now it is time to create your own home which is not always a brick structure but it is truly a place.

That most of us here have shoes older than you are is not to put you down but to invite you into a perspective that is always broader than yourself.  1992 you were born.  Bill Clinton was president and your fist dose of leadership was a sexual foray of entitlement.  Since then he’s turned out to be a pretty decent guy as is the hope for all of you gathered here today.

More than likely, your parents did not take you to church often because they wanted you to find your own faith which is pretty difficult when there is no foundation to build upon.  In that regard I blame them for their oversight which says more about them then it does their parenting skills.  But not to worry, newly graduated folks, that yearning and emptiness that you will sometimes feel as an adult is a trigger that is requesting your undivided attention.  That trigger is the alert telling you that life is more than only you.

All the helmets and backpacks, seat belts, child seats, strollers (with AM/FM radio) and safety precautions your parents have inflicted upon you are now removed as you venture toward risk, challenges, and dreams with many of them full of failures and rejections.

You’ve successfully clicked your way through high school and college, sometimes using only two fingers.  I envy you but I would never want to copy you.  Remember please that nothing will nor can replace looking someone in the eye while relaying a story instead of using those two fingers of yours.  Nothing can replace a personally written note of sympathy to a friend instead of some Internet card with butterflies roaming the edges.  Nothing can replace the maturity of sincerely telling a lover that you are moving on instead of telling another friend on Facebook.

Never can mistaken communication with intimacy.  Never mistaken the easy road for the one that is honest.  Because, so often now, personal honesty is the only honesty we can trust.

Technology keeps telling us “we are in control” as though we are in control.  Illusions abound.  You’ve all grown up with Harry Potter so I hope you know how the power of illusion can illusion a lazy mind.

You and I are not in control except when it comes to our telling comments, statements and reflections that are shared with close friends.  And they are done in person, one to one.  You’ve watched more television than any generation before you and are apt to be more sarcastic than anyone your age has been.  Sarcasm only rises with experience and yours is just beginning.  If you’ve watching too much “Glee” then you’ve missed out on “Breaking Bad.”

Watch them both and allow a synthesis to occur.  Synthesis.  I fear it is a lost word in our U.S. culture.  We hear, digest and repeat but I fear that we rarely, if ever, synthesize.  That word provides the end of two previous words.  The first is a gathering of thoughts, the second is an opposition to those thoughts and the third, the synthesis, is what lives within you and then becomes future comments or commitments or promises or pledges or allegiances or obligations or even passing whims.

The home that you will now create is within you.  Create it carefully; fill it with worthwhile memories, potentials and dreams.  Guard it with your life because it is your life that will unfold because of what you’ve created.

I’ve haven’t mentioned Jesus Christ, God or His mom.  Figure that out for yourself but know that your home can house many rooms, many chambers, many nooks that contain gems yet to be unfolded or known but are still precious and worthy of your attention.

Be glad that you cannot be home because now you’re able to create a home of your own – person hood, authentic, sincere and worthy of the life you acknowledge this happy day.”

We throw them out there in conversations.  More than likely we are not even conscious that we are saying them because we’ve used the word or phrase so many times.  I suspect the word or phrase is used to fill “dead air,” as we say in radio until the conversation either changes or continues.  It is annoying to hear them but hear them we do.  A sampling…

“Truthfully,”  is an alarm clock for you to replay all your conversations with this person because now you’re finally about to hear the “truth.”

“The thing of the matter is,” both “thing” and “matter” don’t matter much.  Just tell me what you’re thinking.

“Basically,” I have a graduate degree.  I am capable in handling complex thought patterns, including yours.

“At the end of the day,” At the end of this day I’ll not be standing before you but enjoying soft music and a cocktail.

“You hear what I’m saying?” Often thrown into conversations throughout the conversations.  My eyes tell you that I’m listening to what you’re saying.  My hearing may not be great but you’re talking loud enough that that statement need not be sprinkled throughout your long-winded statements.

“When I was your age,” I know, I know.  There was no air, roads or food.  When I am your age, I hope I never make the listener feel less than human.

“It goes without saying,” Boy, this is a waste of my listening time.

“As a believer,” (church folks)  Okay.  I already know that I’m going to hell.  Can we get lunch now?

“It Is What It Is,” (see same blog)

“Actually,” I thought everything we’ve been talking about has been “actual.”  Now we’re finally getting “actual?”

“You’re a priest, so,” Yeah, I know what I am.  I’ve never committed suicide but I do have some thoughts on the matter.

“You haven’t met my wife,” Yeah, but after meeting you I bet I’d like her a lot.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”  Now you’re talking.

“There’s that silver pen that I haven’t used for quite a while.  I thought I put it in that drawer but I must have moved it.”

A note.  Thoughts shared between two people with no other audience.  A note.  Hand written to make words have meaning.  A note.  Saved and savored, some forever.

“Oh, the pen was right were I left it on the shelve.  Now, where’s all that stationary that I’ve been saving and haven’t used for years.  Good, there it is.  Let’s see, how do I begin.”

A phone’s text message gives the facts, Twitter has a limit with no feeling, Instagram eludes me and an email tries but always fails to convey something more.

“Ummm, where to start, where to begin.  It’s just a ‘thank you’ note but I want to convey how much I felt about our time together.  ‘Hi,’ ‘Greetings,’ ‘Dear,’ all seem to be ambiguous and vague.  Well, I like ‘Dear’ for its proper beginning.  Oh goodness, look at my handwriting after years of computer typing.  I can barely read it, how am I to expect my friend to enjoy this hand written note.  Oh, it doesn’t matter because this is authentic.”

Telephone calls are still in operation, you can always leave a message.  You can also assume your gratitude toward the enjoyable evening with your friend and know that she enjoyed it as well.  You can also talk about the previous enjoyable evening during the next unplanned enjoyable evening with your friend in the unknown future.  After all, we are all going to live forever.

“Just look at my lines, they all uphill.  When did I start to write this way.  Since I’m left-handed, some of the ink stays with my fingers and runs into the previous words.  Oh my, how did people do this years ago?”

There, finished.  I can’t proof read or correct it because it’s down there in all its glorious and dried ink.  It is forever written and preserved for my recipient. 

My email was sent an hour ago, my other technological methods were completed in less time and I’m now watching television and working on my next project.  I’m glad I sent that message to my good friend.

“I need to carefully fold the message and place it in the envelope.  I hate when the creases don’t match.  I left an envelope here somewhere, oh, there it is.  I’ll lick it closed and now carefully write the address on the front of the envelope along with my return address in case it needs to be returned to me after its days-long flight toward its destination.  Oh, that’s right!  The stamp!  I wonder what stamps cost these days.  I’ll do that tomorrow.  I hope she likes it, it’s my monogram in dark colors against a cream stationary.  I said everything that I want to say to her about the evening we spent together.  I hope that she receives it and likes it.  Oh wow.  Did I sign it?  I already sealed the envelope.  I’m sure I signed it, I was there when I was writing.  I’m sure of it.  It is finished.”

So, what is saved forever and what is deleted.  What holds and endures attention and what is dismissed in the midst of what is so much dismissible.

A lost art or just a loving art that’s been misplaced…at least for the moment?