Congrats's, Class of 2024!

Well, what is that? What's going on here? What's going on is we're in Renton, Washington, just east of Seattle, and it's a commencement, a graduation commencement for Northwest University in Kirkland, which is a neighbor of Renton, Washington, and it's the graduation of our granddaughter, Hope Clemens, the bachelor's degree in communications. That is the sound of anticipation. That's the sound of an ending and a beginning all at one time, and those are family and friends at a university commencement. Let's explore that idea in moment and time together here for just a minute. This is Dick Foth with Stories from the Road. Do we call that event a graduation or a commencement? The answer, of course, is yes. It is both. Graduation says all of the academic requirements the courses and classes have been completed in a particular area of discipline with adequate grades achieved to be awarded a bachelor's degree or a master's or a doctorate. Graduation says those years of effort are over. Then you hear this. It was originally used for the coronation of King Edward the Seventh of England. It's called Pomp and Circumstance. It was written by an English composer, Sir Edward Elgar in 1901, after a line in Shakespeare's Othello, it says Pride, Pomp, and Circumstance of glorious war. I don't really know what that means, but that's what it says. He wrote five military marches for this coronation event, and this, Pomp, what we call Pomp and Circumstance, is March number one. As that music plays from the back of the auditorium, the procession starts. They, faculty, and students begin the long walk down the aisle. They're in this particular facility. There are several thousand people. And they're walking not just on the aisle, but from one stage of life to another. Professors followed by students. And the dress of the day is archaic, really. It's robes and what we call mortarboards that flat piece with a little cap under it and a tassel on the side. And there are chords around the necks of some draping down for honors, cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude, you know, with honor, with high honor, with highest honors. And then for those who are getting master's degrees, or doctorates, what they call hoods, which is a thing that drapes down your back, and it has the colors of the university, and the colors representing the discipline where the achievement has taken place. And what happens is the people start to walk, is that the response of audience increases. There are chairs and there are claps and there are shouts of joy and relief, and anything positive is happening in this moment of time. Because you see graduation is an achievement, an ending. It's both of those, an achievement and an ending. Commencement is the beginning. Commencement says, let's get on with the rest of our lives. For some, it's more training. For some, it's the marketplace. But that's the way life is, doesn't it? It's a progression. In time, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and in experiences, events, challenges, celebrations, people. My question today is, is our time and experience progression, repetitive or building? And by that, I mean, sometimes we hear the old saw, that person didn't have 20 years experience, they had one year's experience 20 times. So the question is, are my time and experience, my progressions in my life, repetitive or building? I mean, for example, external life, sports, skills, crafts, intellectual pursuits, relationships, that's one arena of my life, the external part that people see and can quantify. But then there's the inner life, isn't there? The spirit, the emotion, the will. And that's where I want to land today. How's my inner life growing? How's that, how's that progression coming? Is it building one layer on another? See, the core, this is what I believe. The core of my inner life is who or what? Do I believe in or trust? That singular fact, where I put my trust, that's my foundational point. That singular fact determines the course of my life. What is my true north in terms of how I see life, how I see people, how I make decisions, core questions like, if there's a God, what is that God like, right? There was a religious hitman 2,000 years ago. His name was Saul. Later, he became known as Paul in Israel, where all of the upheavals, not all, but a huge upheaval is happening today, a war is being fought there. And Paul came face to face with this question. How his life would be rooted in a different place or trust growing from different soil, believing in a different person, not in a set of traditions, but in a person. There's a wonderful letter that he wrote back in the day after he had switched what he trusted in, or who he trusted in. And it was a letter to the church in Rome. And Rome in the day would be sort of Washington, D.C. on steroids or something, right? Or pick any huge place like Paris or London or any of those capitals Beijing. And this is what he says to Roman believers in Jesus. And I'm reading now from the message, which is a paraphrase of scripture. It's news I'm most proud to proclaim this extraordinary message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right onto everyone else. God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what scripture has said all along. The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives. It's interesting that paraphrase comes from that last part, comes from the unique original phrase in the Greek language, from faith to faith that our lives grow from faith to faith. There's that progression. And some scholars say from faith to faith speaks of a progressive growing development of faith from one degree of faith to another akin to ever increasing glory. Ever increasing glory is a phrase that was used in writing to the baby church in the south of Greece, a place called Corinth. It Corinth was a wild city. Athens was a place where they thought deep thoughts and drove Bentley's, right? And the southern Greece would be the place where they had wild parties and drove mazeratis. Okay. And this is what he says to that little group in Corinth. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. Sounds like faith to faith for this comes from the Lord who is spirit. My entire point for this little podcast is life is a progression. We grow. We learn. We achieve at certain levels. Then you have a marker that we call graduation. And that's the place where people cheer when I cheer if I'm the graduate and other shout and with joy and with encouragement. This is the same fellow Paul years later talking to his son in the faith Timothy. He says it this way. I have fought a good fight. I have finished the race. I've kept the faith. Now that's the graduation. Here's the commencement. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearance. Now that is something to shout about. Well that's it for today my friends. If you're a graduate time to celebrate, shout and cheer and commence. Get after what lies ahead. That's all for now. Dick Foth, signing off from stories from the road. Thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you a bit later.