Sunday, May 21, 2023
Sunday Reflection: The End/The Start
It was only a few years ago that it occurred to me how odd it is that we call the ceremony at the end of school "commencement"-- a word that literally means 'the beginning.'
Of course, as Semisonic taught us, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Yeah.
But it's hard to think that way sometimes, because graduation is often a hard end. Some of these students I will see again, of course, some of them quite regularly, but for some-- including some of my favorites-- the reality is that I won't see them again, and there is a part of that which genuinely makes me sad. There is a special kind of love in teaching when you really believe in it, and a kind of heartbrokenness that comes at graduation.
In the Waco Trib today, my hero and friend Bob Baird jumps off from my piece about Bob Darden to honor two other teaching legends from Baylor, Ann Miller and her brother Jim Vardaman. (You can, and should, read it here). In terms of teaching, Bob Darden, Bob Baird, Ann Miller and Jim Vardaman were and are light years above and ahead of me, and it is thrilling to just see my name near theirs. In fact, just last week I was speaking at the Univ. of Chicago and one of the other participants was a brilliant young prof. now at the University of Florida, Ben Johnson. His teaching hero and mentor? Jim Vardaman.
Bittersweet is the word for it, I suppose, this commencement business. But a life without bitter and sweet isn't much of a life, is it?
