Bosqueville High School Baccalaureate 2014

Bosqueville High School Baccalaureate

Address to Families

Dr. Dane Fowlkes, pastor of Bosqueville United Methodist Church

"The Tight Rope"

Proverbs 22:6

Open:

"Sermons are like jokes; even the best ones are hard to remember. In both cases that may be just as well. Ideally the thing to remember is not the preachers' eloquence but the lump in your throat or leap of your heart or the thorn in your flesh that appeared as much in spite of what they said as because of it." (So writes novelist Frederick Buechner)

I realize that most likely you graduates will not remember anything said here today, nor will you parents.  But you will remember that you were here, and that's something significant.  You are part of a small community and equally small school that values not only your accomplishments in the classroom and athletic field, but the person you are becoming.  And faith plays a major role in determining the outcome of that personal journey.

Many of you have a decided advantage over me today.  I am not indigenous to this place, but your roots may meander back through a generation or multiple generations in Bosqueville.  I will say that when I put down my own roots in this community eight years ago, I set them down deep. I quickly fell in love with the place and its people. I have substitute taught for junior high and high school, been D.O.G. At the elementary school, attended athletic contests, cheered at Homecoming parades, and served as pastor of one of the local churches in the community.

I wrote this a couple of months ago about Bosqueville:

I reside as part of a small community and I'm a member of an even smaller community of faith. I live here because my wife lived here before me, and over the past eight years I've grown not only accustomed to these surroundings, but to care for the people who are fixtures in these surroundings. Two such residents who mean a great deal to me are our landlords and neighbors from down the simple country lane I now call home.  This relationship led last year to my agreeing to preach at their small historic church that stands near the geographical gateway to the modest region. The white clapboard church building wears the label 'Methodist,' but consists of parishioners who are primarily not Methodists -- a denominational Heinz 57.  So, in an oddly unpredictable way, I fit - in this church, in this community, in this home. I have been thinking lately that were you granted the opportunity like the one given Karen Blixen by Denys Finch Hatton in "Out of Africa" as he flies her in an open cockpit biplane over her beloved Ngong Hills, you would peer down over the side and notice a quilt-like pattern spread out below you, a fitting image for a quilting people. Like the land, we are pieced together here, somewhat akin to gingham patches in an antique quilt.  This is a locale where the cemetery reveals as much about the community as anything living. In the overall scheme of things, not many have lived and died here over the past one hundred and sixty years. A relatively few familiar family names are etched in stone, scattered throughout Bosqueville cemetery like a circling of the wagons, a community's last stand against the onslaught of life and death. In the end, Bosqueville cannot be understood by GPS coordinates or surveyor's stakes; it is defined by its residents. The community persists along family lines, where neighbors know one another, attend each other's funerals, and applaud one another's children at school celebrations and athletic contests.  This is not a place for strangers. It is a place for friends, a place for family, and, above all else, it is a place for being known.

This year is quite a contrast to last year's baccalaureate service for me. Last year I had a daughter seated with the soon-to-be graduates.  This year, she is elsewhere doing other things that 19 year-olds do. So, perhaps it's appropriate that I address not the graduates this year but the families of these outstanding young men & women dressed in cherished blue & black.

Our Text for today is found in Proverbs 22:6, an admittedly odd text for a message to families of young women and men leaving high school.

I am reading from The Message:

"Point your kids in the right direction-- when they're old they won't get lost."

I like the way The Message translates the verse because it comes close to giving us what the author intended.

- Chuck Swindol, says that the best literal rendering of the verse is "Train up a child according to his bent."

What this means to me is that....

I. All Parenting is a Journey of Understanding.

- Our great task (and at time enormous burden) is to seek to understand the uniquenesses (and sometimes peculiarities) of our children.

- Our great opportunity is to fashion and adapt our training methodology accordingly.

- It is this customized approach that draws out the strengths in our children that set them up for success.

- Intense, hands-on, high control training comes up front.

For example:

When our child is about to sear her or his hand to the stove, we don't say, "Now, Sweetheart, let's stop and think this thing through.  Let's look not only to what we want at this moment, but to what this will mean down the road.  Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

No, we shout, "Don't touch that!" while we spring into action to prevent them from burning themselves.

That kind of parenting is appropriate, effective, and necessary with children.

But our text has a second part that involves a dramatic shift of responsibility, both on the part of the child and the parent.

"when they're old they won't be lost."

II. Parenting Young Adults Is Standing Beneath a Tight Rope.

1. The age implied here is anything after childhood.

- Herein lies a challenge: What forms the boundaries that mark the post childhood stage?

- American society defines adulthood in confusing ways-- drive at 16, vote at 18, buy tobacco and alcohol at 21, if student, can stay on parents' insurance through graduate school to age 25.

2. I may not be able to resolve the confusion over definition, but I can say this with confidence about our text:

- It means, as parents we do take on a different role.

- The initiative moves from the parent to the young person (Point them/ when they are old they will....)

3. Our task is to encourage safe independence.

- To me, this is like standing under a tight rope.

- Our child (at least in our thinking) is on a tight rope called adolescence.  It is fraught with danger and delight, with disaster and exhilaration, with irresponsibility and leadership.

- We stand underneath, forming a safety net. Ours is not to decide for them, intervene in every case, to prevent failure at all costs.  It is to be for them a safe place that emboldens them for the high wire.

- This is much more like training lions than seals.

- What I'm suggesting is that we parent in such a way so that our children become men and women because of us, not in spite of us.

CLOSE:

The post graduation path need not be a walk on the wild side, but it will definitely be a walk across a tightrope. There is room for only one on the wire. Be careful not to crowd them or cast too much weight on them.  But do stand ready to encourage them, listen to them, advise them, warn them, admonish them, coach them, forgive them, trust them, and above all, love them.  Remember that a high wire acrobat will likely never need the safety net below them, but knowing it's there inspires them with the courage necessary to make the journey.