RE-READING MY DIPLOMA

Another season for college graduations. For the diplomas which proudly attest to all the years and lessons required to reach this good day. One wonders, though, how many of the parents and grandparents in these summery audiences suspect they lost almost as much as they gained from their own years and lessons.

With each new book read and course passed, you gather unto yourself what our professors and our culture defined as knowledge and truth. Surely now "the truth shall make us free."

But here's the funny thing. There was a trade-off taking place. Think about it. The more knowledge and truth that fills your life, the less room there may be for what filled it before. In the case of our youthful ignorance, the trade-off is an immensely good one, because ignorance among the citizenry of a democracy is fertile grounds for lies, deceits, false gods and cunning tyrants.

However, there was another trade-off taking place. The more knowledge and truth that take root, the less room there may still be left for those young virtues of awe and wonder, mystery and belief, leprechauns and angels.

Let's be clear here. This is not a plea for eternal childhood. St Paul said it well: "Now that I am a man I have put away the things of a child..." Victor Herbert sang it well: "Childhood -- once you cross its borders, you can n'ere go back again..."

And yet, isn't there some genetic law that has us yearn more for what we have lost, the longer we are from the loss? The flippant accusations of "second childhood" and " silly sentimentality" come easily from teens and caregivers. The first don't understand; the second understand all too well. But there may be something deeper going on. That daunting dawning at the sunset of life that what was yours at the sunrise may have been your richest treasure.

Thus spoke Citizen Kane of his "Rosebud." Also Jesus: "Let the little children come to me and do not stop them; for it is to such as them that the kingdom of God belongs."

This bridge we call life extends over the pit of time from those first-walked-bricks all the way to these last-walked-stones. Yet it is all one bridge. The elders in these audiences have learned how life only makes sense looking backwards, but it has to be lived going forwards.

Which is perhaps why they embrace the eager young graduate so tightly. In that embrace, they may be trying to pass the experience of age on to the eagerness of youth. Just possibly the very best moment of the day...