Dear Class of 2012

Last updated on: May 14, 2012 at 8:45 pm by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Dear Class of 2012 2012-05-14T20:45:58-06:00 Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

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The weather was kind this year as SUV’s with license plates from New York and Massachusetts started showing up around town, driving slowly with their turn signals on, trying desperately not to look lost. The sun shone bright and the humidity staid low and the local restaurants were packed with mothers in sun dresses, hugging their children, saying that they couldn’t think of a better gift than seeing their child graduate from college. Such is Mother’s Day in this city where we have not one university, but two. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to try to get a room.

But if advice is what you’re looking for, this is the place to be in early May. Our local newspaper was full both Saturday and Sunday of words of wisdom from politicians and civil rights leaders, TV personalities and even the First Lady, all weighing in with one last word for these young folks who’re wrapping up their education to head out into the great wide world of work and family, avocations and citizenship.

All of this reminded me of a conversation I had with a young man who graduated a few years ago. He’d applied for our internship at Rutba House, and I’d asked him what he hoped to get out of it.

“Well,” this young man said with an earnest expression, “I want to be a doctor, and I’ve got a pre-med degree that’s prepared me for med school. I know med school is hard work, but after five or six more years, I’ll know what I need to know to be a doctor. But I thought I should stop now and learn how to live. Because if I don’t learn now, I’m not sure when I will.”

Of all the important things that could be said to the class of 2012, I think the most important might be the insight of this young man.

Now is your chance to learn how to live.

Take it.

Because however much you want to make a difference, however much you want to fight injustice, however much you want to love and serve your neighbors, you can only do it as you live. And most schools don’t teach you to do that well. What we need much more than answers to our big problems is people who can live a just and peaceable life, day in and day out, becoming the change they want to see in the world. What we need is people who know how to live.

This is why, some years ago, I worked with about a dozen intentional Christian communities around the country to start a “School for Conversion” that would allow young people to come and see how communities live that have tried to shape their whole life around the way of Jesus. We’ve been hosting “weekend visits” for the past six years, and some 1,500 people have passed through these communities, going on to start new communities, to join others, to establish households of ordinary radicals for their family and friends. These weekends are, in short, a space to come and consider how to live.

The commencement exercises are over here in this college town, and the rain that held off has set in. Life is back to normal. But I’m delighted to say that, just this coming weekend, SFC is hosting a weekend at Reba Place Fellowship, one of America’s oldest and wisest intentional Christian communities. There’s even a few spots open yet.

So, class of 2012, whether at Reba Place or elsewhere, go forth and learn how to live. You won’t regret the time you spend apprenticing yourself to Jesus’ way of life.

School for Conversion

way of life

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