One thing no one told me about post-school adulthood is that every May I would ask, “Has it been another year already?” Without the rhythm of the school year to pace the passing of time, I am less mindful of the growth and changes happening over the days and months and years. But Senior Sunday is a touchpoint of transition.

This Sunday during the 11:00 worship service, we will honor our high school seniors, many of whom we have seen grow in this community from little ones who sit on the chancel steps in Children’s Time to those who stand to read and sing and serve.

I hope you will join us as we give thanks for all they have blessed us with as part of our Church and as we bless what is to come in their lives. There are so many words I want to bless them with. Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie beautifully, and authentically paint this blessing:

For Beginnings and Endings

This life is made up of so many beginnings and so many endings.
We start new jobs and leave old ones.
We move to new cities and leave our childhood hobbies in our parents’ basement. (Sorry, Mom.)
We become new people slowly
(hopefully kinder and funnier?)
Friends and relationships come and go.
Dreams blossom and then they wither.

And we find ourselves here once again at the precipice of change.
Afraid to let go,
and afraid of what will happen if we don’t.
Might this be a place of blessing too?

Blessed are we standing in the hallway
between closed doors
and ones still to come,
between the old and the new,
between the worn-in
and the doesn’t-quite-yet-fit,
between who we were
and who we might become.

God, make it remotely possible
to grow and change,
become open to new adventures,
and untethered to routine
or to the same-old.
Because the anxiety rising in my
shoulders and filling my throat
tells me I am unlikely, unwilling,
to step forward.

Blessed are we who take a minute
to look over our shoulder
at all we learned from what was,
the people we became,
the people who loved us into becoming.
The peace that came with familiarity.

Blessed are we who trust this timing,
and who open our hearts anew
to change, to new friends, to hope.
Nervous, maybe heavy-hearted,
but brimming with gratitude for a life
so beautiful that it hurts to say goodbye.

Blessed are we, turning our eyes ahead
toward a new path not yet mapped.
God, give us courage to take this next step,
and enough for the one after that, too.
Remind us that you have gone before
and behind, and around,
and are with us now.

In our leaving, in our arriving,
in our changes, expected or shocking,
surprise us with who we might become.

May it be so.

In grace and gratitude,