This weekend we rekindled old relationships, made new friends through spouses and children, and some of us partied like we were closer to our high school age as opposed to the age we are now. Seeing many of my classmates from my youth all in one place made me feel as though it has only been a few years since that year we graduated from Cary. But the stories we shared and heard suggest that it has been at least twenty years since our high school days.
We have lived and loved. We have died and our hearts have been broken. Some of us have as many as five children (maybe more) and some of us have none. Some of us have parents who are still together and some of us have parents who have split. Some of us have lost a parent or both. Some of us have been happily married for a dozen years or more and some of us have divorced once, maybe twice already. Some of us are single and like it that way, while others are single and lonely. Some of us even have lots of people around us all the time, but constantly fight loneliness. Some of us have healthy children and some of us are caring for children with life-threatening illnesses, treating each day, each hour, each minute like it was a gift. Some of us have jobs and some of us don't. Our lives are changing every day, and yet somehow we are still the same.
This past weekend was full of fun and reflection, leading me to summarize that the last twenty years were full of paradox - laughter and tears. Indeed it reminds me of a Dave Matthews lyric, "the space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more."
My prayer for all of my classmates and their families for the next twenty years is that they will know the truth that is articulated by N. T. Wright from his book, Simply Christian. That truth is "the claim that the paradox of laughter and tears, woven as it is deep into the heart of all human experience, is woven also deep into the heart of God."
