As the academic year winds down across the U.S., indeed, across most of the Western world, and students and parents prepare for (or have already experienced) that often magical day when the student walks across the stage to receive her diploma, be it for high school, college, or a graduate degree, we cannot help but think about the complex wonder of human transition.  That we are creatures of time and change is clear, and that we measure our lives according to moments, big and small, is obvious, and it is good that we do.  It is good that we are creatures of passage and exchange.  Our lives are truly alive.
     It is also good that we come to this particular moment of transition, this graduation day with a sense of anticipation, that we look forward to the milestone it represents, that we find joy in the new phase of life if offers to us.  With each new point of passage, we learn new things, new dimensions of who we and life are, new paths of insight into the mystery of being human.
     For we do indeed walk in mystery, a mystery that although we experience its moments, is a mystery that remains forever elusive, the abiding and fleeting mystery of existence.  But we love it anyway.  We love life, and we love how it measures, affects, and transforms us.  We love life because it loves us:  it makes us human.
     And to be human, in all its fullness--material, spiritual, natural, and supernatural--is all that we are asked to do.