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For Our 2016 Graduates

Let’s hear it for our graduates, congratulations -we are so proud of you!

As we celebrated the Feast of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we realize that they are in union because they constantly say yes to each other. They constantly are in relationship with each other.

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I would like to tell a true story about a woman who you may know from some of her shows. She has written Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal. It is often known as ‘Shondaland’. Her first name is Shonda. She has written some of these amazing shows. They are all on Thursday night. Thursday night is prime time TV. It is the night of the week where you want to have a show. She writes three of the shows on Thursday nights. They are written and created by her. She loves what she does. However, she also finds out that with her work comes a great deal of responsibility. By saying yes to it, she has to say no to a lot of other things.

She realized that she was saying yes to work all the time and no to a lot of other things. This is the moment she realized it. It was Thanksgiving. She was with her sister at her sister’s house. She had a baby so she had a little baby on her hip. Her sister was talking to her as they were cooking. She said, “Hey, are you going to go to the Oscars?” And Shonda said “No. I don’t like people. I am not really going to go to that.” Her sister said, “Well, what about the White House thing? I mean, not everyone gets to go to the White House. Are you going to do that?” She said, “No. I don’t want to do that either. You know I don’t like people.” Her sister finally says to her, “You know what? You say no to everything.” And it struck her to the core, and she realized that she does say no to everything.

She decided that for one year of her life she would say yes to every single invitation that she got. She would say yes to everything that made her uncomfortable. She would say yes to the things that she would normally immediately say no to. And it changed her life forever. And what I am going to read to you, is her most important ‘yes’. I would like all of us to think about our most important ‘yes’.

As the year of ‘yes’ began to go forward, something happened. I got busier and busier and busier. The more I said yes to things that challenged me, the more I had to leave the house. Saying yes had turned my little cocoon into a big social butterfly. I flew from New York to see Kerry Washington guest host Saturday Night Live. I went to private parties with very incredibly interesting people. I threw a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. I helped host charity events. There were a lot of awards that year. Now there were not only one show starring a black woman on Thursday night, but there were two. All three shows on Thursday nights were from ‘Shondaland’. My publicist Chris was smartly taking advantage of the fact I would say yes to everything. He was booking as many interviews for me as he could.

I did my first Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts. I went with the cast of Scandal to The View. I was on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I was photographed by Annie Leibovitz. I did a live interview in front of an audience at the Smithsonian. I felt like I was everywhere. And I was everywhere, it seemed, but at home. Which makes sense. All of the things that challenged me happened outside of my home. Inside my home, doing just fine. At least I thought I was. I mean, I still thought I was doing fine, but I had started to feel irrelevant in my own home. I would come home and Emerson and Beckett would glance my way, give me a nod and continue playing, like I was the nice neighborhood lady visiting from next door. Or Harper would eye me with distain when I asked her which friend she was talking about. I realized I had missed a whole weeks of discussions. That is a lifetime in ‘tween years’. Then I hit an emotional wall. One night I was all dressed up in a ball gown, hair and makeup done perfectly, borrowed diamonds shimmering on my neck and wrist, ready to head out to some event that I had said yes to. As I walked through the foyer to my front door, my daughter, Emerson, came rushing towards me. ‘Momma,’ she was hollering, sticky hands outstretched, ‘Want to play?’

For that split second, I felt like time froze, like in one of the action movies where everything goes into slow motion. But there is Emerson, her one curly tuft of hair bound in a valiant attempt at a ponytail at the top of her head in what makes her look like Tweety Bird. She is frozen, then moving toward me in slow motion. Then the whole room is spinning, and I can see myself, the blue ball gown, the sticky hands, and the child hurdling through space towards me. She is asking me a question: ‘Want to play?’ I am late. I am perfectly, elegantly dressed. Caroline Herrera made this gown, the shoes I am wearing are some kind of navy lace that I find extremely painful, but darn they look good. When I step out on that stage, the speech I have written for this particular evening in tribute to a friend is funny and it is vibrant and it is moving. I know it will be a special moment. Something the town will probably talk about the next day. My phone keeps buzzing repeatedly. It is Chris, my publicist. I really should be arriving about now, but ‘Want to play?’ There is that round face, big hopeful eyes. She has cupid red lips. I could bend down, grab her hands in ‘No, no, no. Momma has to go. Momma can’t be late.’ I could. It would be within my rights. It would not be unheard of. It would be okay. She would understand.

But in this moment, I am realizing something. She did not call me honey. She always called me honey. She called everybody around her honey. She is not calling anyone honey anymore. She called me Momma. She is changing right before my eyes. The baby who was on my hip that last Thanksgiving is going to be three years old her next birthday, and I am missing it. She is going to see the back of my head, heading out the door more than she will see my face. So in that split second, everything changes. I kick off my painful high heels, drop to my knees on the hardwood floor, making the ball gown poof up around my waist like some kind of navy confection. It is going to wrinkle. I don’t care. Want to play? she asks. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I do.’ And I grab the sticky hands in mine, and Emerson plops herself down into my lap laughing as the gown flies around her.

When I arrive at the venue fifteen minutes late, the navy ball gown is hopelessly wrinkled and I am carrying my heels in my hand, but I don’t care. There is a hot pearl of joy in my chest that is warming me in a way that I had forgotten was possible. That little fire inside of me has been reignited like magic. That little fire is love. It is days like this that I feel like I am still alive.

We hear in PRV 8:22-31 this whole notion of play. It is actually the moment of creation. We hear about wisdom. It says, “Then I was beside Him as Him as His craftsman, and I was His delight day by day, playing before him all the while playing on the surface of the Earth, and I found delight in the human race.

See, graduates, in all of you, God finds delight. He is like this father figure that is always present in your life. He does not want to miss a single opportunity of your life. He always says yes. That is really what the Trinity is. It is the Father saying yes to the Son, and the Son saying yes to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit saying yes to the Father. It is a whole Trinity of saying yes to each other. It is a whole Trinity of saying yes to life. It is a whole Trinity of saying ‘YES’ to love.

This place is your home. This place, ultimately, is the place where you are called. Hopefully, in this place, we will more often see your face than the back of your head. This place is where we are all called to be home. But the reality is some-times we have choices in life, and we can say yes to a lot of different things. We can say yes to a whole world of possibilities, and sometimes we can say no to the things that we most need to not neglect.

What I find so wonderful about this story is that during her year of saying ‘yes’, she found out what was most important. When her child said, “Momma, do you want to play?“,  she found out that that would be the most important yes she would ever say, and it changed her life. Because from that moment on, she decided that anytime her children asked her, “Momma, do you want to play?“, the answer would always be ‘YES’. And the same is true of God. If we ever ask God to be a part of our lives, if we ever say to God, “God, do you want to play? God, do you want to be with me right now?“, the answer will always be, “YES.” We will experience that fire within us. We will experience that life within us. We will experience that Trinity within us because we have said yes to the most important thing.

My dear graduates, you are going to have a lot of choices in life. You have a whole world of possibilities before you. Our hope and our prayer is that you always say yes to God and that you will always ask Him, “Hey, God, want to play?” Because His answer will always be “YES!