Why is it so hard to unpack those last few boxes—the ones full of scarves I never wear, greeting cards I’ve never sent, and Tupperware from the Jimmy Carter era?
We moved four months ago, and after finding places for everything I actually use and wear, I lost my unpacking mojo.
Realizing that it’s crazy and probably just wrong to own stuff I never see or use, I recently forced myself to go through some unpacked boxes sitting in our barn. In the process, I unearthed a bunch of sentimental stuff from my high school days.
Tucked away in the faux-leather folder containing my high school diploma was a copy of the speech I was railroaded into delivering at my graduation ceremony.
I stopped unpacking, took a few minutes to read that speech, and had myself a bizarre little moment of reflection. The words typed on those note cards summarized the wisdom I had accumulated in my 18 years of living, and they rather poignantly exposed my undercooked heart and brain.
My speech was full of the naïve clichés that make commencement addresses so endearing.
“We can be whatever we want to be” and “we can make our dreams happen,” and such.
I also included several quotes from the person I evidently thought was the wisest person I could quote in 1975: the late pop singer/songwriter Jim Croce. (You may remember Croce for hits like “Big Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle.”)
Reading over that old speech, I tried to remember why I thought Jim Croce was so wise. Didn’t I have anything more transcendent and profound to share with my classmates than some pop song lyrics?
No, actually, I didn’t.
Back then, my worldview and convictions were crazy quilts of pieced-together advice and philosophies gathered from my parents, friends, teachers, books, movies, TV, and maybe especially, music.
Music has always been a big part of my life, and song lyrics from the ’60s and early ’70s are permanently etched in my brain.
Countless times in my childhood, I took my $1 weekly allowance and headed straight for a nearby store to spend 78 cents on the newest record by The Beatles, The Monkees, The Dave Clark Five, The Bee Gees, and others.
That left me with 22 cents for important staples like Sweet Tarts and Bazooka gum, and a brain full of “wisdom” from artists like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Jim Croce.
I thought they surely knew what life was all about. I was wrong.
Let me ask you: Who do you consider to be the wisest people you know? Who do you listen to? Who shapes your worldview?
I ask because it matters.
Just a couple of years after delivering that graduation speech, I finally found “true north” on my compass. Not because anyone pressured me, and not because it was the cool thing to do, because it definitely wasn’t, but because I was honestly, desperately searching for truth.
When I heard it, I recognized it, and much to my surprise, it was the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the One I’d always assumed was so irrelevant.
At one point in His earthly ministry, Jesus asked His closest disciples if they were going to jump ship, as others had done.
Peter hit the nail on the head. To whom shall we go?
Jim Croce wrote some nice songs, but his words couldn’t have gotten me through losing a baby, 16 surgeries, or a cancer diagnosis. But the words of Jesus did.
If I were giving a graduation speech today, I’m pretty sure I’d have to quote Jesus.
As I’ve discovered time and again, He alone has words of life.