Being in California was wonderful.  In addition to appreciating its almost always splendid weather, I valued so much watching (and, metaphorically, walking with) my son stride across the graduation stage and, metaphorically again, into his destiny.
     Destiny is a slippery term, really.  For people of faith, it is often enshrined in what they perceive to be the will or design of God.  God, they believe, is, somehow, working in and through their lives to carry out his vision for them, to bring them to the point at which he desires them to be, that is, unequivocally committed to living for a higher purpose, the purposeful love out of which the world has come.
     For the unbeliever, or perhaps those of a less dedicated or focused faith, destiny is the flow of their lives, the goals they pursue, the ideals they nourish, the life that they would like to have, possess, and live.  Destiny is not embodied in any transcendent purpose, but simply the inevitable, given individual input, energy, and shaping, outcome of how one implements one's personal vision.
     In truth, however, both sides are after the same thing:  existential fulfillment and life meaning.  And why not?  We are all human; we are all interested in making the most of this present, and fleeting, existence.  So who's right?
     In a way, both; in another way, only one.  Either there is a God active in reality, or there is not.  It's quite black and white.  We frame destiny in the lens of our cultural baggage and spiritual conceptions.  Bigger picture, however, if destiny is entirely driven by what is before us, yes, it will be ever present and real, but no, it will not, in a world devoid of a reason to be, be real as reality should be.  It's a construction of the perceptual moment.
     I know that my son is committed to deepening his understanding of God and his ways in his life.  I know that he is full of ambitions and dreams.  How he, and all of us as well, balances these things steps into the ongoing work of a personal God in the cosmos, well, that will be his--and our--greatest destiny of all.