Reunion

Fifty years is a long time! And it has been a very long time since my classmates and I last left our high school behind - leaving behind not just our particular Boomer generation's distinctive experience of adolescence, but also (and more than we could ever have anticipated at that time) leaving behind a whole way of life.  The High School itself has been closed for almost half of these 50 years. Built as an expression of post-war prosperity and confidence, as well as the zeal and enthusiasm of the mid-century Church in America, it closed in 1991 - a casualty of the loss of so much of that zeal and enthusiasm, rooted in a collapse of our cultural confidence.

Last night, however, was not another occasion for such somber thoughts. Rather it was a celebration of one another and of the memories we share from a world long gone. Because it was very much a neighborhood school, many of us enjoyed a connectedness with one another and with one another's families that preceded high school and in some cases perdured.  Meanwhile, we have for the most part all gone our various separate ways, along the paths life has taken us. We have become judges and lawyers, policemen and priests, teachers and truck-drivers.  And in that sense certainly, the school did a good job!

As for those classmates who could not be with us, whose earthly labors have already ended, may they rest in peace, and may we all come together again at the greatest reunion of all in the kingdom of heaven!