This year, the WHS Class of 1986, of which I am a part, celebrates its 20^th class reunion. 2006, is the 20^th year of our adulthood—we’ve now been out of school longer than we were in, many of us have children of our own about to graduate, and we’ve reached what is quite likely the halfway point of our lives. I find all this singularly sobering.

The year we graduated from high school, The Cosby Show was the top rated TV show; the number one song was "That’s What Friends are For" by Dionne Warwick and friends; It by Stephen King was the best-selling book; Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; and Out of Africa won Best Picture Oscar.

We came of age during the Reagan Years, when Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko told us that greed was good and the trickle down effect of Reaganomics never quite reached us. We were the first group to be introduced to the PC, the CD, MADD, AIDS, MTV, ET, CNN, and DNA fingerprinting. Michael Jackson was the King of Pop and Oprah Winfrey was just beginning her reign as the Queen of TV.

Fashion was influenced by the dance clothes of movies like Fame and Flashdance and the music videos on MTV—ripped sweatshirts, headbands, and who can ever forget, legwarmers? Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren were name brands that dominated, and Duran Duran and Miami Vice brought us pastel suits and "designer stuble," even as Tom Cruise in Top Gun made Ray Ban must-have eye wear. And let’s not forget parachute pants and thin leather ties for guys and the Madonna accessories for girls. There’s also the hair—the VERY BIG hair, the Jheri Curl, and the bi-level, the forerunner of the Mullet (which came to our town to die and never did). Of course, for most of us we all had the same cut—the Linda Gail. But as popular as all these things were in the rest of the country, inside the hallowed halls of WHS the uniform of choice (or should I say conformity?) consisted of tight, straight leg jeans and T-shirts—with a light Member’s Only jacket added during the mild North Florida winters.

As we were coming of age, so were slasher films—Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger were cuttin’ kids like us up and most of us couldn’t get enough of it. But there were real things to be afraid of—such as Darth Vader’s evil empire the Soviet Union, and the looming threat of nuclear war.

We were the first generation to get cable in our small town (the one John Mellencamp was singing so eloquently about at the time)—and all the trauma that came with it such as seeing Ronald Reagan get shot repeatedly. I also vividly remember, a small group of us stumbling out of Mrs. Lester’s art room and into the classroom next door to watch as Challenger fell from the sky, its image, along with that of school teacher, Christa McAuliffe waving as she walked toward her destiny, played over and over again until it was burned onto the screens of our minds.

In some ways, it will always be 1986 for us. Rick Springfield, Lionel Richie, Culture Club, Hall and Oates, Donna Summer (as played by the WHS Marching Band, The Silver System), and Cyndi Lauper, will forever be on our radios, their music the soundtrack of our lives, in some nearby theater a Molly Ringwald movie will be playing, and year after year, no matter who is crowned, Yvette Avrigan will always be the homecoming queen.

Many of the things that we witnessed the birth of back in the 80s have reached maturity today (even if many of us still haven’t): digital music is no longer just on discs, but on our computers, which are no longer clunky metal masses with monochrome monitors that run on disc drives, but small, sleek machines with mega memory and a portal to the world via the connective tissue known as the Internet. The blockbuster now dominates all aspects of media and entertainment, Walmart has taken over the world, closing down some wonderful Mom and Pop shops along the way. Family farms have gone the way of payphones. Video games (Space Invaders, Pac Man, Tron in our day) have moved out of arcades and convenience stores and into sophisticated home platforms that make what we played look like the graphic equivalent of cave drawings.

The world is changing in ways wonderful and detrimental, and we all continue to be swept along in the rolling river of life, carried by unseen currents we can neither fully understand or control.

Life laughs at the plans we make. I live less than a hundred yards from where I grew up, having done what I swore I never would—returned to a place that didn’t feel like home the first time (which has far more to do with me than the place). Now, my daughter, a Junior at WHS, walks the same halls I did, sits in the same desks, eats at the same tables (probably even some of the same food), her teachers my classmates: Karen Turner, Jay Bidwell, Stephanie Wade, Micah Peak; a few of her teachers, teachers I had: Elaine Layton, Evelyn Cox (until a few years ago).

I can’t speak for my classmates, but twenty years after the diploma was placed in my hand and my tassel was moved from one side to the other, I still feel eighteen much of the time, still feel like adults are other people—my parents and their peers, perhaps, but not me. In many ways I haven’t grown up and never will. In others, I am so far from high school I can barely remember it—only the monotony, the beige, the desire to fit in and not stick out, yet the need for independence and self-expression. I remember fondly the dances following football games when we were still in junior high (slow dancing to Boz Scaggs "Love Look What You’ve Done to Me" and feeling every word of it), first love, the cool, fun teachers like Carol Kelley, Elaine Layton, Gary Speights, and Betty Ann Owens, and any activities that got us out of class—whether legit or otherwise.

I haven’t kept up with my former classmates very well. I have no idea what most of them are doing with their days, but I’m not surprised that Dayton Lister or Mike Harrison, men of integrity and morality are in law enforcement, or that Aaron Myers or Jenny Bloodworth are involved in the Arts, or that Micah Revell still spends so much time at WHS because she seemed to love it as much as anyone when we were students there, or that Karen Prange is still the sweetest, kindest person you’re likely to meet.

One theory of the pre-life is that as souls we choose those we will join with to form a family when we reach earth. I think the same might very well be true of classmates.

Twenty years have come and gone, flying by much of the time, crawling occasionally. The world is as different a place as we are the same at our core the people we’ve always been. More than two decades after we sat in our last class together, we’re still connected, and always will be, to each other for no more reason than that we did time together in the formative years of our lives before we were paroled for time served and good behavior, set loose, ostensibly as adults, on the world awaiting our arrival. But that’s no small bond. At least twenty of us walked into kindergarten on the first day and out of high school graduation on our last, and in the process had experiences we didn’t have with any other human beings on the planet.

To my fellow classmates of the very best class ever, the Class of 1986, I love you. Thanks for all the memories—monotonous moments to milestones—and, let me just say that if you’re lost you can look—and you will find me—Time after time. If you fall I will catch you—I’ll be waiting. Time after time.

The War on Terrorism may well be over. If it is, we lost. We ended the war on terrorism not by defeating terrorist, but by joining them, and if we become terrorists, then there is no one to fight terrorism.

Have we become terrorists? If we use the techniques and tactics of terrorists, I say we have.

If our government sets aside laws at will, we are terrorized. If our government spies on us, listens to our conversations, reads our mail, examines the books we read or web sites we visit, then we are on the verge of being terrorized. If our government is no longer transparent, if the acts it takes, ostensibly on our behalf, are done in secret, if there are secret prisons, and if people are held without due process or even the hope of a trial, then we’re no longer living in a Democracy but a Dictatorship. If our leaders justify their thirst for power by claiming to be anointed and appointed by God, then terror is around the next corner. Don’t believe me? Just read a little human history.

As I witness all of these developments, the words of Benjamin Franklin continually swirl around my head. He said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

It is not an overstatement to say that we are not only on the verge of losing the War on Terrorism, but the very soul of our nation, that a long dark night is in our very near future if we continue to fight terrorism with terrorism, gods with gods, dictators with dictators of our own.

As evident and alarming as all this is, what is by far the most disturbing is the way those in power want to "reinterpret" Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions which governs the treatment of prisoners of war and prohibits "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."

If we no longer abide by the above, and there’s plenty of evidence that we don’t, then it’s not even in question any longer—we have lost the War on Terrorism.

As someone who has worked and volunteered in prisons for over 13 years, I know how difficult certain inmates can be and how tempting retaliation is. I also know how very easy it is to abuse power (no matter how much or little one has) and that those who do, those who descend to the words and actions of criminals become criminals themselves.

After doing time, Dostoevsky said "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons"—this, I would add, includes our prisons that are not on our soil.

There are many arguments against the use of torture for prisoners—most of them being made by soldiers or politicians who have actually seen combat (such as Colin Powell, Lindsay Graham, John McCain, and John Warner). They and others argue that combatants will more quickly surrender if they know they will be treated well and that our soldiers won’t so readily face torture should they be captured.

But as true at their arguments might be, I’m arguing from a far less practical and, I believe, far more vital principle.

Our government is overrun with politicians who have aligned themselves with religion, who blur all lines of the separation of church and state, who claim to be committed to the same truths and teachings the rest of us are—yet these are the very ones who are setting aside our constitution and laws and the Geneva Conventions in order to fight terrorist like terrorist. These people claim that Jesus Christ has changed their hearts and that they now follow him.

Are they really following Jesus? It’s easy to find out. Let’s ask What Would Jesus Do (something they’re fond of saying)?

Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven. Be compassionate even as your Father in Heaven in compassionate."

Perhaps these words can’t be our only guidance for operating prisons, but they certainly should keep us from becoming like those we’re trying to protect ourselves from, and remember what the biblical book of James says: "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

And just in case, as many argue, that religion is the problem in the first place, I’ll even add the words of a self-proclaimed atheist. Nietzsche said, "When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you" and "He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

To be sure, there are monsters in the world, and we must fight them, but if we become like them we’ve already lost. We must remember, we’re talking about human monsters—people we must try to understand—and a good place to start is with ourselves, examining the part within us that desires to do the same things they do.

Reading (A Celebration)

In the beginning was the Word . . . at least for me. My love affair with literature began with that most ubiquitous of Western books, the Bible. The power of the Word captured my imagination and held me captive by the pictures its letters painted of humanity and divinity. This first occurred during my adolescence, and what I thought was exclusively about the Word was the beginning of my journey with all words. What I mistakenly thought was an exclusive glimpse at God was more accurately a glimpse into what human beings (literary characters and their authors) believed about God and other ultimate issues—and what this says about them. By experiencing the people of the Bible—hearing their thoughts, listening to their dialog, watching their actions—I gained insight into others and myself.

I’ve been spending my life with literary characters ever since.

In college, thanks to a Literature teacher and a TV show, I began to read fiction—an experience so profound that I eventually began to write it. Trisha Weeks, my college lit teacher turned me on to fiction by the way she facilitated the discussion of it in her class. I witnessed firsthand the power of art as each student shared their view of the "meaning" of what we were reading. Because what we were reading meant so many different things to so many different people, I realized just how personal, powerful, and profound the assembling of words into sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books could be. Edmund Wilson said, "No two people have ever read the same book." The TV show that led me to books was Spesner For Hire, a detective show based on the novels of Robert B. Parker. When the show was canceled after three seasons, it left me wanting more. I turned to the books and have been reading fiction ever since. Thank God the show was canceled!

Books are my companions. They ease my existential anxieties, providing comfort and compassion. As C. S. Lewis said, "We read to know we’re not alone." It’s within books that I get to get inside the hearts and minds of others, to share life’s journey with them, to be encouraged by the similarities of our struggles, failures, and triumphs. As Andre Gid puts it "To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company."

Reading both broadens and deepens. I have journeyed across the world, vicariously lived a thousand interesting lives—all without ever doing more than turning the page. As Mary Schmich said "Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere." But it’s not just that books transport me across the wide world, but that they take me deep into the hidden heart of another human being. "Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own" is how Charles Scribner, Jr. says the same thing. I read and reread Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair not only to travel to war-torn London of the 1940s but into the very soul of Maurice Bendrix, to not only witness but experience his ill-fated affair with Sarah Miles. I become Bendrix, loving and hating Sarah, consumed by jealousy of her, drunk with passion for her.

Reading is the truest education—and that of head and heart. I have learned far more outside the classroom than in. The best thing school, especially college, does for us is to teach us how to learn—how to think and how to read. A good education is one that makes us students for life. As Thomas Carlyle said, "What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us." We learn by reading, but what we’re learning is not just information, not only fact and figures but if we read the right books, what we’re learning is nothing less than how to be human, how to be the best us we can be.

Reading teaches compassion. There is no better way to feel what another is feeling (the very definition of compassion) than to read yourself inside his or her heart and mind. Through reading I have come to appreciate and respect the journey of others no matter how different from my own. Reading actually puts us in another’s place—inside them if not actually becoming them.

Reading what someone has taken the time to write gives us much more knowledge, much greater insight than just listening to what someone has to say. There’s no better way to convey information, wisdom, insight, emotion than writing, no better way to receive them than reading. When we read we are actively participating in the process of communication far more than when we just passively listen. If knowledge is power, there’s nothing more powerful than reading, for the act itself infuses us with knowledge, becoming part of us in ways no other form of communication can.

We should not trust leaders who do not read. They are shallow, narrow-minded, and small-souled. As Michael Foot said, "Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power." We are living in a time when our culture is increasingly anti-reading. The noise of TV and talk radio is drowning out the silent book on the shelf, the quiet life of reading, and our "busyness" is making buffoons of us all.

Reading is contemplative. When we read, we meditate. Reading turns us inward—a book reads us even as we are reading it. Reading is a journey that leads us ever deeper into our hearts and minds, allowing us to explore hidden depths not previously plumbed.

Reading is an absolute essential for the education of the mind, the inspiration of the spirit, the nourishment of the soul, the enrichment of the heart. Henry Fielding said, "Read in order to live" and Joseph Addison said, "Reading is the basic tool in the living of a good life." If we are to be the very best human beings we can be, we must read. It has been said that the unexamined life is not worth living. The same can be said of an unread life, for it is through reading that we experience the best and worst of humanity and of ourselves. Reading changes lives. Reading saves souls. There’s no greater gift we can give ourselves than a good book and the space and time to read it.

The Smells, Sights, and Sounds of Summer

(A Celebration)

The thwack of a bat as it hits a baseball, the roar of cheers from parents in the stands; the slap of a palm on skin, the smear of blood, as another mosquito loses its life; the crack of thunder, the flash of lightening; raindrops pinging tin rooftops and thumping damp ground; the burst and bang of fireworks; a watermelon sliced down the center, the juice from its heart dripping from a child’s chin; sand on a paperback novel at the beach; boys on bicycles, girls in shorts and flip-flops; the smell of meat cooking over an open flame drifting in the smoke of a nearby grill—these are, for me, the smells, sights, and sounds of summer.

I love summer.

I love having my children home, us having the same schedule and even more time together. I love the slightly slowed-down pace of life. I love the NBA Playoffs in June (Go Heat!), the summer blockbusters coming to the big screen, getting together with family and friends in July, and the oppressive, stroke-inducing heat of August.

There’s nothing like summer in Florida. There’s hot, then there’s Florida summer hot. The rest of the world is warm. We’re sweltering. I love coming in from the heat into the coolness of an air conditioned room, and I love the fell of crisp coolness of clean sheets in a cold hotel room.

Summer for me used to mean checking out Hardy Boys books from the small vault we called a public library, its tiny space cold and loud from the air conditioning unit, taking them via bicycle to my grandparents house on Lake Alice, and reading them in the quiet coolness with a glass of the best lemonade ever made. It meant Vacation Bible School, a cottage at Mexico Beach (sleeping on the back porch to the sound of waves rolling in), family reunions, going to Blue Lake and Aldersgate Methodist Church Camps, and Lamb Jamb, the contemporary Christian concert series I organized during my high school summers.

This summer I have enjoyed playing basketball on an outdoor court in the blazing heat of midday, watching my children grow up (which they are doing with far more grace than I ever did), teaching my daughter how to drive, watching The Closer and Deadwood on TV, Brick, Nacho Libre, MI3, Superman Returns at the theater, reading the books Crusader’s Cross, Letters to a Young Contrarian, Terrorist, and a collection of Early John Updike short stories.

I think the best summer song ever is Endless Summer Nights by Richard Marx. Listen to this: Summer came and left without a warning
All at once I looked and you were gone
And now you're looking back at me
Searching for a way that we can be like we were before

Now I'm back to what I knew before you
Somehow the city doesn't look the same
I'd give my life for one more night
Of having you here to hold me tight; oh, please
Take me there again
Oh, oh
Chorus
And I remember how you loved me
Time was all we had until the day we said goodbye
I remember every moment of those endless summer nights

I still recall the walks along the beaches
And the way your hair would glisten in the sun
Rising in the afternoon
Making love to you under the moon, oh

Do you remember all the nights we spent in silence
Every single breath you took was mine
We can have it all again
Say that you'll be with me when the sun brings your heart to mine
Oh, oh

Repeat Chorus

There's only so much I can say
So please don't run away from what we have together
It's only you and me tonight
So let's stay lost in flight
Oh, won't you please surrender

I think the best summer movie is Grease, and I still remember the rite of passage it was for my parents to take me to the old Florida Triple movie theater to see it and Jaws 2 the summer of 1978 when I was ten and my little sister was away at camp.

I think the best summer fruit is watermelon, the best summer desert is key lime pie (though a strong case can be made for homemade ice cream), the best summer drink sweet iced tea in a Mason jar. I think the official animal of summer should be the mosquito. I think the best summer activity is a trip to Miracle Strip—at least it was until it closed.

I love summer.

As holidays go, Independence Day has never been high on my list of favs. I’m more of a Halloween and Christmas celebrant myself (and far more the seasons than the actual days, which are almost always anticlimactic). I realize now that ranking the celebration of independence down near the bottom of my list just above Thanksgiving and Labor Day is incongruous, for I’m as about as independent a cuss as you’re likely to find.

An independent person is not influenced or controlled by others, someone not subject to another’s authority. Independents think their own thoughts, make their own decisions, refuse to be part of the crowd—no matter how "in" the crowd is. They are not controlled by the opinions, wishes, or criticisms of others. They are free.

Being free is what this peerless country is all about—freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble. Freedom.

Being free, being independent means being ourselves, living according to our own convictions. It’s about thinking critically, questioning everything—including ourselves. It’s about taking responsibly, realizing the quality and trajectory of our lives is largely in our hands.

We’re given an opportunity few people in history have had—we actually live in a place where (in principle at least) we have the right to be ourselves. So why aren’t we? Why don’t more of us live freely?

It takes courage to be independent, a willingness to stand alone. It’s often uncomfortable and lonely. It costs—sometimes greatly. As Steve Schmidt said, "The price for independence is often isolation and solitude." It takes time and space and quiet to form our own convictions and opinions and live them out. It also requires willingness to fail, to make mistakes, to suffer the consequences of our actions. Being independent is taking the long view, it’s a trial-and-error approach, committed to growing and becoming and learning—as much from our mistakes as our successes. Samuel Butler put it best: "Independence is essential for permanent but fatal to immediate success."
There’s an enormous amount of pressure from those in the crowd, the congregation, the political party, and our families for we independents, to join them. The world if full of controlling people who are threatened by our freedom. I’m not saying they hate us for our freedom, just that they like the safety of numbers and want to add ours to theirs.

Independence and freedom must be guarded. We must protect this most precious of gifts, become freedom fighters who defend it, oppose those who would use manipulation and fear to take it away form us.

Fear keeps us from being independent, and it’s wielded like a weapon by those who want us dependent on them. Notice how those terrorist alerts stopped after the last election? Fear is the opposite of faith and freedom. It is used to manipulate us into giving up our independence, but when we do, we become less ourselves, less the people God created us to be, less worthy of the precious gift of freedom we’ve been given. For as Ben Franklin so poignantly said, "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

We used to be a nation of rugged individualists, mavericks who gave the finger to England, trailblazers spreading out in all directions of this sprawling country, but no more. Today, we move in herds, hold the party line, think what we’re told, and speak like parrots.

Once, independent entrepreneurs birthed their own businesses and served their neighbors with integrity and accountability. Now, corporate giants, who have devoured nearly all the independents, serve only the bottom line as they homogenize America, removing everything that is personal, regional, idiosyncratically human. For the sake of efficiency, convenience, price, and profitability we’re losing our very souls.

Today, talk shows full of sound and fury and signifying nothing tell us how to think, what to say, what to do. We’ve stopped reading and so base our decisions and opinions on sound bites, full of bias and manipulation. Our political parties no longer encourage debate, no longer allow dissent, just expect blind obedience without question. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples no longer produce spiritual seekers who work out their own salvation, but cult-like adherents to simplistic platitudes, shallow doctrine, and oppressive dogma. Our classrooms are no longer a place for creating lifelong students, for questioning and exchanging, for lively discussion, but are now factories for rote memorization for the purpose of passing standardized tests. And that says it all. We’ve become a Standardized Nation, unable to think for ourselves, unable to be ourselves, just another clone created by the great machine formed by the unholy

union between the State, the Church, and Corporate America.

I’m so proud my first two novels were published by independent presses. I’m proud to edit one of the few remaining independent newspapers. I proudly support independent films and music and literature. I treasure the Internet and the freedom of expression and enormous dissemination of information it provides. I’m happy to pay a little more to an independent bookstore or restaurant or retailer (because I know the high cost to freedom and human rights the low prices of the huge conglomerates exact on us all).

You and I have been blessed to live in a time and a place where we can be independent, our freedoms guaranteed by law, but if we’re to be truly free it’s up to us. Would we be free? Will we pay the price? Will we turn off the noise? Will we read and think and meditate? Will we separate ourselves from those, whether in our families, our churches, our jobs, our activities, our government, who would manipulate or intimidate us into being their slaves? Would we say to them the following?

"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve the bands which have connected him with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle him, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the separation. I hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when anyone, be it person, government, religion, or business, becomes destructive to these ends, it is our right and duty to alter, abolish, or separate from them, and to institute new relationships or governments, or businesses or churches, laying their foundation on such principles and organizing their powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect the safety and happiness of our freedom."

Independence isn’t an end in itself, but a vital step along the way toward interdependence. Though we don’t need to be unduly influenced or controlled by others or systems, we do need each other. What I’m ranting against is dependency, the thoughtless pack mentality, the fear used to control, subdue, and keep us from being true to the people God created us to be. Obviously, we need family and society, but for these to function optimally, they must be comprised of individuals encouraged to be themselves, allowed to offer their gifts and talents in an environment of support and mutual accountability.

When a child is born, a father is born, writes Frederick Buechner, and he couldn’t be any righter. Sixteen years ago today I wasn’t a dad. Two months and three days later, I was, and it was as if I had been born again. I was new. I was something I had never been before.

I do a lot of things, have big dreams and great expectations, and admit I suffer from OCWD (Obsessive Compulsive Writing Disorder), but there is no more important job I will ever have than that of father. It’s my first responsibility, my first priority.

I, like most of you, have been given a nearly unfathomable opportunity to help craft a person, mold a mind, and I do not take—

(Excuse me a moment, my son has just come in, and I’m going to pause here to spend a little time with him, then take him to a friend’s house to play.)

—it lightly.

Fatherhood is a high calling. One in which we become a metaphor for God. As William Wordsworth said, "Father!—to God himself we cannot give a holier name."

To be the best fathers we can be, we must make time for our children. Not just say they are a priority, but live it, and not just when it’s convenient. Putting our children first means putting them ahead of everything else—our time and possessions. As Harmon Killebrew said, "My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." Dad would reply, "We’re not raising grass. We’re raising boys."
I do not see my children as a burden. I not only love them, but I genuinely like them, and like spending time with them. I know they will be away soon, off to college and an independent life of their own, and the quiet I’m so fond of will be too thick, too loud, too constant. I try to remember this always, and to cherish every moment for the priceless gift, the exquisite indulgence it is.

I’ve seen far too many fathers try to redeem themselves by being decent grandfathers, not realizing as young men what mattered most in life. I don’t want to make that mistake.

All dads are teachers, but great dads are great teachers, training their children to be well-adjusted, productive, compassionate people with purpose. George Herbert said, "One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters." Whether we know it or not, we are all teaching our children. Some dads are teaching abandonment, others that you can’t trust anyone, others racism, ignorance, hate, disrespect and abuse of women, but others are teaching what in the best sense of the word being human really means. Clarence Budington Kelland said of his dad, "He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." Great dads raise great sons who become great dads and great daughters who become great mothers. Everything we do is a lesson. What are we teaching?

My faith as a father is this: I am going to be the best dad I can ever single day of my fatherhood. I’m going to make time for my children—a lot and often. I’m going to lead by example. I’m going to really listen to my children, careful to hear what they’re saying and what they’re not. I’m going to empower them, weaning them off dependency on me and onto independence and strength of their own. I’m going to love them every second I’m alive and try to tell them about that often (and show them even more). I’m going to honor their autonomy. I’m going to do all within my finite power to keep them safe, not exposing them to danger or unnecessary risk. I’m going to be here for them—in the house, in their lives. No matter what. I’m going to be good to their mother. I’m going to accept their choices and not shield them from the consequences of their actions (at least most of them). When I die, I may be a failure in every other area of my life. I may still be an obscure, irrelevant novelist, still broke, a communicator with a minuscule audience, but I will be a success as a father. My children will know they were loved and that there was one person in this world they could depend on no matter what. No matter what.

A commencement isn’t just a long, often dull ceremony associated with graduation. It’s a beginning, and since life is a series of beginnings (and endings and new beginnings), I’d like to address you, my fellow students of the U of L in a commencement speech of sorts.

In the University of Life, life itself is our teacher. Experience is the greatest educator, and education is unending. If we go to other schools, particularly college, it is merely to learn how to learn, to be made a student, so that when we graduate and commence into our "real" lives, into jobs and families and all the ambiguities of adulthood, we will be prepared for the truest, deepest learning to begin.

There’s a catch, of course. There always is.

If we are truly to learn, to grow, to become, if we are to eat the book of life, take into ourselves all it has to offer, life must find us willing students. When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Well, ready or not, life, the great teacher is upon us, but we will learn nothing if we’re not open, willing, ready to learn.

In the profound words of the brilliant Frederick Buechner, "Listen to your life." Listen closely and listen carefully. It whispers. Life, like God who gives it, is subtle—easy to miss. Buechner goes on to say "See [your life] for the fathomless mystery that it is. Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are sacred moments and life itself is grace."

If we are found ready, how will we learn? Not line upon line, precept upon precept, and not in any semblance of linear or vertical progression. The courses offered at U of L are circular where we wind and wander more than ascend and achieve. Life is a series of steps forward and setbacks, never quite what we imagined, never quite what we planned. The students who do best at U of L are flexible. In creating the world, God created order out of chaos, and sometimes (far more often than we would like to admit) the chaos shows through. Roll with it. Let life take you where it will. Don’t attempt to master it. It is the master, you and I, its pupils, and we must add humility to our flexibility. At U of L we learn to bend or we break.

What will we learn in our classes at U of L? Probably variations of the same curriculum, each with nuance specificity unique to us. The degree programs here are highly individualized. We learn different lessons at different times—largely up to us. Life is a Montessori institution, but I’ll share with you a little of what I’m trying to learn:

Meaning in life is more important than money (or anything else). Meaning comes from purpose, service, and love. Purpose comes from us knowing who we are and what we’re here for—finding and opening our gift and using it to serve others. Our gift will do much for us, but it’s what it does for others that is most rewarding. Loving and being loved gives our lives more meaning than any accomplishment or achievement or attainment.

Life all comes down to choices. There are always two trees. Choose life. There are always two gates. Choose the narrow one. There are always two paths. Choose the one less traveled. Character is destiny. Choices determine character. Our fates are up to us. What a gift. What a responsibility.

There are costs involved in everything, and they’re often hidden. We can pay now or we can pay later, and it’s always best to pay now.

As Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than intellect."

Depth and richness—spiritually, intellectually, creatively—need stillness, silence, and solitude. Just be. Be still. Be quiet. Be yourself. Be true. Be.

Life is difficult. There’s nothing easy about this school. The course work is rigorous, the schedule demanding. We’re not only having knowledge and wisdom put in us, but also having ego, pride, envy, selfishness, self-righteousness beaten out of us.

U of L is, or should be, a party school. As difficult and as painful as life can be, it is also fine and inspiring and awe-filling and wondrous—worthy of celebrating. We celebrate to appreciate, to savor, to honor, to cherish. Life is a gift. Gifts are given at parties. Commence the celebration.

Finally, life is short. It’s the gift none of us want, one that seems to keep on taking, but mortality is a gift. Soon we will graduate from this life, taking with us to the next only that which we learned here. Every semester change, every tick of the clock, every drop of sand, every heartbeat draws us that much closer to the commencement at which we are surrounded by flowers instead of classmates. Time is short. Life is precious. Ding. Ding. School is in. Get your ed on. Commence to living. Commence to learning. For at the U of L you’re only a student once. Commence to making the most of it.