Journal Entries

Last Sunday I drove up to Seminole for Todd’s high school graduation ceremony. He is the son of my cousin Sherrie and her husband, Mike. I missed the ceremony for Lisa, my other cousin’s daughter, who also graduated this year in Lovington.

Cyndi couldn’t come with me to the ceremony since she was tied up with responsibilities at our church, so I was sitting all by myself with no one to talk to and joke around with and had to entertain myself while waiting for Todd, who was at the end of the line, to finally get his turn. So I wrote down the time for every 10^th graduate, and after establishing the pattern, predicted Todd would cross the stage at 3:25. He actually crossed at 3:23. My prediction would’ve been more accurate if I’d remembered to wear my digital stopwatch instead of my analogue watch, which rounds off to the nearest whole minute.

Listening to the valedictorian and salutatorian speeches, I wondered how often we hear, “Congratulations� for an accomplishment, and the very next phrase we hear is, “What’s next?� As if there is no rest for the victorious warrior, no chance to relish the victory, only the next battle.

“What do you mean, ‘What’s next’? Aren’t you proud of what I’ve done?�

“Of course I am, but what you’ve done is not all you are. What you are, is, what’s next.�

Maybe it doesn’t seem fair to be asked in the moment of success: What’s next? Shouldn’t we get a chance to feel good about ourselves? But actually, just asking the question, “What’s next?� is a compliment. Knowing there is more, is a big thing.

And it is good news, I think, that what we are today doesn’t have to be our finest hour. Our best days are ahead of us.

In his second letter, the Apostle Peter described the upcoming events and then asked this question: “What kind of people ought you to be?� (II Peter 3:11) He asked, “What’s next?�

So congratulations, you high school graduates, “What kind of person will you be? What’s next?�

Sitting in my plastic chair in the overflow section under the bleachers at the Seminole High School Gym, listening to name after name after name, I jotted down a list of my own “Congratulations, what’s next?� moments.

High school graduation

College graduation

Marriage to Cyndi

Byron born, Katie born

First marathon

First career promotion

First time to lose my job

Elected to government

Ordained as a deacon

Turned 50 years old

We never paid much attention to birthdays in my family, but fifty seemed big. It’s halfway to a hundred! But at my birthday party last summer, my friends who’d already crossed the 50 threshold just held the door open for me and said, “welcome in, it’s great.�

“Congratulations on surviving 50 years, so what’s next?�

I have a T-shirt that Cyndi had printed for me back in the 1980s celebrating the fact that I’d run 6,000 cumulative miles. The day after I ran my 6,000^th-mile, I went out and ran again. And the next day. And the next day. And now, twenty years later, I recently crossed the 31,000 mile line. “Congratulations on your success, what’s next? Want to run some more?�

Now I’ve run 7 marathons, which is a lot compared to the outside world, but not so many among the circle of my marathon-running friends, and in each one, I asked myself during the last 25 miles of the race: What was I thinking; why am I doing this again?

Yet, at the moment of victory, and crossing a finish line is victory no matter how many marathoners crossed ahead of you, my first thought was … I’ll do better next time.

OK, not exactly my very first thought – my first thoughts were always about finding a place to sit down - but very soon afterward I was planning my next marathon. “Congratulations, what’s next?�

In my life I long for next time. It’s one of my most important thoughts. I always center my hope in next time.

So congratulations, Todd … congratulations, Lisa … what’s next? Your best days are ahead of you.