Reflection for June 7, 2020 - Trinity Sunday and Youth Sunday - Douglas Williams: Class of 2020
I graduate in 3 days, on the 10th. My family was going to come up and celebrate, I was going to have a big barbeque with my friends, I was gonna go on a victory tour with my classmates at school and through town. I imagine it would have felt like graduating elementary school on steroids: we would have butterflies in our stomachs as we realized it was our last month, week, day, hour in our K-12 careers. I imagined us dancing in the halls, getting proud looks and nods from teachers and mentors, our parents in tears as they realized that those blubbering adorable babies who depended on them for love, life, and safety have become bone-headed adults, ready to charge headfirst into the real world without them.
But instead, I realized I was close to graduating when I saw a sign stuck into the grass on Comm. Ave that said, Douglas Williams: class of 2020. My mom took a picture, with me in my PJs rocking the quarantine cut, and I went home to eat pasta and chat with friends online. It felt so… anti-climatic. I realized that graduating is the least of my concerns. It’s overshadowed. I’m about to leave home in the midst of a global pandemic, and an ensuing economic collapse, rent crisis, and who knows what else. China is making veiled threats, western nations are retracting into evermore nationalistic shells, the earth is on fire and only getting hotter, a new spotlight is being shined on the inequities in our nation, and leadership is… questionable. I know the real world isn’t supposed to be easy, but come on. And the scariest part is all the adults looking up at me and my friends praising us as the new generation of leaders that will face these challenges head on. We can barely manage our sleep schedules and tremble on first dates and class presentations.
Like many of my fellow gen Z zoomers, I’ve spent a lot of time scrolling through memes to find moments of humor in all this. And one got me thinking. It poked fun at how frustrated millennials must be as they enter the second global economic crisis of their adult lives. Go back twelve years and the world is also a terrifying place. The economy is in the gutter, wall street is being outed in every headline, there is a war in the middle-east, we’re still reeling from the most horrific terrorist attack in U.S. history, and we have our first black president, which to some people was the end of American leadership and culture.
I started mentally jumping back 20 years at a time, and realized that, no matter where I stopped, America and the world was being rocked by something new. War on terror, war on drugs, Vietnam, World War II, and the War to End All Wars. We’ve seen the great depression, oil and housing crashes, terrorism and racism, and shifty leaders all over the world. I realized that, as much as I’d like to complain, I’m really not that special, hell I’m even lucky in most regards.
I’m entering into an uncertain world, but I have some constants. I have a family that loves me, a community that believes in me, and faith that grounds me. If you go to the 8 o’clock, which I highly recommend if you haven’t, you’ve heard Jeff say this every other paragraph: “faith is about the relationship between you and God.” No matter what you think, feel, experience, or do; no matter what happens around you, you’re still connected to God. That is why faith is unshakeable. My concept of God has evolved a lot since 2nd grade. I initially pictured God as a squirrel, because everyone said God can be anything. Then I heard something one morning that changed how I looked at it.
We were having a discussion at the 8 o’clock about how people wish for a messiah. The hope that some figure would descend with a halo and address all the injustices we see in the world. Jeff then said, how do we know someone hasn’t? The spirit is in us all, and we all influence those around us. In a way we are all like mini-Jesuses, working to improve the world. Beyond that, there have been extraordinary figures addressing injustice. Yuri Kochiyama, MLK, Malala, and so many more have spent their lives fighting to right the world. They could very well be considered modern day saints.
It may seem like we’ve gone on an optimistic tangent, but these two ideas; that faith is our relationship with god and there are messiahs all around us, have been the basis for my faith. God is in the people all around us, faith is about your relationship to God, and faith grounds me. There are people in my life who guide me, lead me, mentor, inspire, support, love me. My relationship with these incredible people is my faith. I’ve watched friends overcome depression, abuse, mental and physical illness, disparities in every form, to achieve their goals. I have grown so much thanks to the support and inspiration from friends, family, and peers. When you think of it like that, it becomes really easy to see God around you, and to visualize your relationship, and thus your faith.
The future is scary, but that isn’t anything new. What also isn’t new is that the world is full of amazing messiahs. I want you all to think about someone you think is incredible in your personal circle. I want you to realize that as terrible as everything gets, they are still going to be an example of God’s love and vision. I look around at my peers in the class of 2020, proud of what we’ve accomplished, and excited about what we will do next. I will always have that unwavering connection to God in those around me, and will be able to learn and grow from their lessons to face whatever comes next.