It's Graduation Season!
May and June are typically graduation season here in America. We talk about “high school graduations” or “college graduations.” Recently there has been the addition of middle school and kindergarten graduations. In a few weeks I will participate in a graduation ceremony for the genetic counseling graduate students that I have been teaching at Boise State University for the last two years. I have heard the word “graduation” my whole life. But I never stopped to wonder where this word comes from.
So this year I looked it up. I learned that the word “Graduate” comes from the from Latin “graduatus” which in English means "a step.” “Graduation” conveys the idea of climbing up on a ladder or stairway—so “graduation” means a “step up,” to move toward a higher goal. When you graduate you are rising by stages; you are “leveling up;” you are “starting a new adventure” at a higher level.
Sometimes we will also use the word “commencement” when talking about the ceremony that honors a class’s graduation. So at a commencement ceremony you celebrate a graduation, a “moving upward,” with a ceremony that honors “a new beginning.”
I was thinking about these words this spring as we celebrate all these happy events, as our young temple members, our family members, and friends celebrate their graduations. And we celebrate these happy events along with them.
I wondered: “why do we stop celebrating ‘graduations’ when people are done with their schooling?” After all, we are always changing. We are always growing into new phases of our lives—we are always moving up a step. In Buddhism we say “everything changes.” And each time something changes we are “graduating” to a new level; we are “commencing” into a new part of our lives. Sometimes those levels are harder than others—not every level is fun. But I was thinking that it may also be helpful to take some time to honor all the changes in our lives: as we move forward, as we move up to the next level of our lives—why not celebrate?
