I just gave this talk this morning at a day of reflection for the Grade 12s next door. Several people suggested that I post it…so, here it is! It was a beautiful opportunity and I was so happy to be able to be a part of their day…

May 1; SHSH Grade Twelves; @ Saint Mary’s

Back in the day of paper maps posted on walls and behind plexiglass in places like museums or subway stations, there’d usually be a helpful little red dot with the label—You are here.  It was a helpful visual that situated you within a larger whole.  You could see where things were located relative to where you stood and map out a way to get where you wanted to go…an escalator, the washroom, the room with an exhibit of Art Deco Travel Posters from the 1920s —which is oddly specific, I realize, but a personal favourite—now you know something about me. Today, you can QR code your way to a curated path guided by a companion that nudges you—metaphorically or actually, if you are also wearing a watch that vibrates— when you are supposed to turn.  At first, these methods of way-finding seem quite different—and they are.  But, what you are doing while you are using them is the same.  You are walking, rolling, hopping, skipping…doing Something that moves you along the path, bit by bit.  When you check your phone again, when you look at the next map…you can see—I am not where I was.  Now I am HERE…which is not BACK THERE and not yet OVER THERE.  Along the way to HERE, much has happened. You have moved yourself through time and space to occupy the very space you occupy at 9:23 AM, May 1, 2026. But not only have you moved.  You have experienced your way to This now…which is not the now of your first day at Sacred Heart, the now of the day you learned to ride a bike or blow a bubble, won that award, learned how to conjugate verbs in another language, got your license or any other now.  All that you have experienced has brought you here.  

All of it.  The moments that have been fireworks and ice cream and the days you’ve pulled up the blankets and wished you could hide…or maybe have hidden, for one reason or another, in one way or another.  It has taken all of that to drop a pin and mark you here, about to graduate, about to set off again with a big neon THERE glowing on the horizon.   You already know that what happens along the way is not all a walk in the park…and yet and still, here you are.  Without the experience of grace, without the experience of challenge,  exactly as they’ve made themselves manifest in your life,  this moment would not be your here and now.  

Please know that I’m not suggesting you be thankful, per se,  for the times of struggle and upset.  What I am saying is Look at your Here.  Look at your Now.  You made it!  With all the good and the less than good.  With all the people who challenged you, supported you, aggravated you, loved you, taught you in a whole variety of ways.  And also please know that it’s not all about what has happened to you—it’s about what you’ve done with it, what you DO with it…how you have learned from it—what you will take with you, what you want to try again, and what’s best left as a lesson in what not to do. I’m sure each of you have a couple of those lessons already filed away.

And that kind of discernment, the sussing out of what to take, what to leave, and what to do with it all… That isn’t just for these sorts of milestone moments… Because beginnings happen all the time.  Did you have the worst day Ever?  The sun will set and rise anew.  And the same thing is true when you’ve had the Greatest day.  

Tomorrow will come, mysterious and roomy…what will you bring to it?

And not only what—but also whom? The people and relationships that have shaped you in all sorts of ways…teachers, relatives, friends, people that are still with you and maybe people who only crossed your path for a moment but had an impact…or left you a lasting lesson, large or small.  Who taught you how to tie your shoes? Do you remember?  I still remember sitting in my saddle shoes with my father who patiently waited for my muscle memory to catch up with my brain…over-under-loop-wrap-tuck-pull. Seems small, but abut 52 years later, I’ve got shoes that stay on my feet and I can secure an apron around me when I cook…

It’s well worth taking time to think about the web of relationships that have brought you safe thus far…and realize that it’s the beginning!  Your web is no where near complete! Again, how fabulous is that?  And, just as wondrous as the geometry and configuration of webs you encounter in the wild, so too there is mystery in our own networks…

The seemingly random encounter, the oddball chance of sitting next to someone in pre-primary or helping someone learn to trill their rs in Spanish class because you knew how and they needed help.

All of this is with you as you head out into a much bigger picture.  It has prepared you…and it is inviting you.

Theologian Frederick Büechner has this to say about where you are headed… ‘Here is the world.  Beautiful and Terrible things will happen.  Do not be afraid.’

And one more thing to go with that…I asked this of the fiancee of my best friend’s child too…. They are getting married this summer and I told him I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one thing:   If at some moment you are out in this world of ours, in the midst of some of those beautiful or terrible things that Will continue to happen to you and to those around you, and you stop… and you notice the green on a tree, you notice a canopy of stars, you notice an act of kindness or the perfection of a grapefruit’s design…and you feel wonder…you feel like maybe there is something greater than you that has a handle on things… Please let yourself feel that awe… That sense of being accompanied by something you can not know completely.  Call it what you will—God, the universe…but allow the feeling.

It can help when you feel afraid.  And when you’re okay, or steady enough, anyway…you can reach out to others walking beside you and maybe give them good courage too. Making your way together, helping each other. Joy and fear are both better that way–but you know that too–look around you.

Saint Madeleine Sophie said to her Religious–the Fate of the Society is in your hands. Your corner of the world? Not the whole thing…your own corner of it? It’s in yours…and really, always has been…and you are seriously begun in how you care for it. You had help when you were young, and you will still have help…but more of it is with you now.

It’s all rather amazing…daunting, sometimes…but amazing and of and about something so much larger than ourselves? Absolutely. What an invitation…