Look at it this way.
Commencement Exercises -- Choosing a song
I received an invitation in the mail last month to a High School graduation party. A past choir member from many many years past was graduating from High School! It seems inconceivable that one of my choristers was going to be entering Clemson University this Fall. Where does time go? Reflecting on years that fly by gets you thinking.
There is something bittersweet about commencement excercises. It is the end of something old and the beginning of something new. It’s the moment in time that marks the known past and an unknown future. Commencement exercises celebrate both accomplishments and opportunity. It’s both glad and melancholy. It’s indubitably confusing!!
The fact is we all experience “commencement excercises” throughout our life: beginning with kindergarten graduation (which was instituted after I entered first grade); and all the way through marriage, job changes, and the funeral of a life partner. What I have found is that they don’t get easier with practice; they get harder. “Commencement exercises” seem to carry more significance as we go along our way.
Here's my advise to all as you commence through life...
Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win.
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom Thou diddest die,
Being with Thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
May live for ever in felicity;
And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same again;
And for Thy sake, for Thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
by Edmund Spenser
From Songs of Praise
"... we all experience “commencement excercises” throughout our life "