“Observations”

by: Donald S. Conkey

Date: 17 May 2007 - # 920 - Graduation Day – A New Beginning (804)

Saturday, May 26 – Cherokee County’s high school graduation day – a day anticipated for 12 long years by the hundreds of seniors, and their parents, who will graduate this year. Included in this ritual is the traditional tossing of their prized mortarboard high into the air to symbolize their new independence – becoming “men and women now more free of family constraints.” They have just reached a major milestone in their lives.

      Included among these hundreds of county graduates will be our granddaughter Amanda Karski. If the excitement of graduation that eludes from Amanda represents the excitement of other graduates their combined energy could generate enough power to provide Cherokee County with electricity for a month.

      Amanda sent us two invitations — one to her high school graduation, the other to her seminary graduation, a program she has attended daily, beginning at 6 a.m., during her four years at Etowah. Amanda, along with several of her church friends are now prepared to meet both the secularly and spiritual challenges that lie beyond high school graduation.

      In addition to celebrating Amanda’s graduation from Etowah Joan and I are also celebrating the college graduation of two grandchildren, their spouses, and a future member of the family who will marry our granddaughter April on July 7. These five all graduated from Brigham Young University.

      While reading our invitations to these several graduations my mind reminisced a similar event in 1945 – my own graduation. I think I felt the same anticipations and anxieties our grandchildren, and their peers, are feeling today – a certain degree of uncertainty living in an uncertain and often confusing world.

      How unlike, yet how similar today is with 1945. Nearly every male graduate in 1945 was required to serve in the military. America was at war, a war that killed or wounded sixty million people. America is still at war today. The death count is less but the enemy is still the same – evil tyrants and dictators who have no regard for individual freedoms or liberty who want to impose their beliefs on others.

      In 1945 Hitler was the enemy. He committed suicide and Germany surrendered.  But America still faced a determined enemy in the Pacific – Japan. Had the Allies been forced to invade Japan it would have cost over a million lives. Yes the atomic bomb took many lives but it saved many more than it took.

      War was hell then even as it is today. No one wants to see loved ones die in any war. But the adversary is as determined to destroy mankind’s freedoms today as he was in World War II. As much as we detest war it seems to be a constant to every generation. John describes the first recorded war – a war in heaven where Lucifer and his followers were “cast down” to earth as their punishment.

      Today, like in 1945, the military continues to call on the latest graduates to serve their country. While not mandatory today as it was in 1945, many respond. Three of our grandchildren have answered that call.

      Graduation day today, as it was in 1945, continues to be a day of reflection — a day to hug friends, a day to make journal entries, a day to ponder past achievements. It is also a day to look to the future and decide which of the several roads that beckon they will take. It is also a time to ponder the words of those who have traveled this road before them. Recently a friend shared these words with some graduates: “My dear young friends, there is another great truth that you must learn. It is that everything has a price. There is a price to pay for success, fulfillment, accomplishments, and joy. There are no freebies. If you don’t pay the price that is needed for success, you will pay the price of failure. Preparation, work, study, and service are required to achieve and find happiness. Disobedience and lack of preparation carry a terrible price tag.” Good advise.        Had Joan and I attended the BYU graduation exercises with our grandchildren we would have heard Vice President Dick Chaney counsel the graduates on failures and setbacks. Said he: “Setbacks in life can stop you dead in your tracks, or they can inspire you forward. When you face setbacks move forward.” BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson counseled the graduates to “seek opportunities to serve their families, their church, their country and their alma mater” before saying to them: “Do not mortgage your future by making unwise economic choices in the immediate years ahead.” More good advise.hAhhh                      

      Parents – graduation-day is a day to rejoice with your graduate as he or she celebrates their first major achievement, the first of many achievements that lay before them – as they begin their journey through mortality as an independent human being.