Crossing the Threshold 
MAY 27, 1995 

    On behalf of the Cheyenne Mountain High School class of 1995, I take the pleasure of welcoming every one of you to our commencement exercises. We are very happy that each of you has joined us today as we celebrate the achievements of our class. As parents, relatives, and friends, you have helped our class in its journey to this culminating moment. We thank you for your contributions to our lives, for the consistent support and patience you've shown, and for your presence here this morning. 

    As we stand on the threshold of adulthood today, we stop to ponder the vision unfolding beyond it. This morning, I'd like us to gaze into the future, and consider the paths it may hold for us. M. Scott Peck began The Road Less Traveled with the words, "Life is difficult." Life is hard, and many of you know that far better than I. Eighteen years of experience have taught us that life has its ups and downs. At times, we've contemplated life with joy, optimism, and amazement. At other times, almost all of us have wondered if life was really worth living after all. At those times, we've stopped to ask the hard questions of life's meaning, our insecurities, our individual places on this ball of matter, and of the existence and nature of God. 

    As we look through the graduation threshold, we see the pattern of ups and downs continuing. The vision ahead challenges us to enjoy the good times and to grow through the hard times, seeking and finding the answers to the essential questions. Without these answers, we cannot get through the hard times intact nor achieve freedom from futility. Looking beyond the threshold of graduation, we also see the final threshold, death. I see death as a door at the top of a ladder. We will spent the rest of our lives before we die climbing that ladder. My hope today is that when we reach the top of that ladder we won't find that we've been climbing the wrong ladder all along [Blackaby and King]. 

    We’ve been told that high school and college is the time to "find oneself." These are the years of self-discovery, of coming to understand our personalities, and of determining our identities. When we search for our identity, we search for which ladder we'll spend the rest of our lives climbing. What ladder will we bank everything on as being the ladder that will take us to where we really want to go? What ladder will we climb with passion because it seems to be the one, which for us, promises not be a futile climb to frustration and disappointment? There are many ladders and many identities -- many avenues to explore as we search for Meaning and Truth. Our identities can be career choices, but they usually aren't. More often, we identify ourselves with the ladders of whatever thing we find most meaningful and desirable at the time. The ladder we choose is that idea, activity, or person with which we most closely identify ourselves. 

    Stripped to the basics, our individual lives are merely expressions of what we value above all else, merely expressions of our identities. As we step through the threshold today, the identity question is a crucial question for us.  No . . . it is the crucial question. Identity determines everything: what we value, what we believe, how we view the world, whom we spend time with, what we think about and talk about, whom we date and marry, how we spend our time, what our goals and ambitions are, what career we pursue, what our moral standards are, how we use our money -- everything about us. 

    Our identity is the central passion of our lives that directs everything else. We choose an identity and it chooses the course of our lives. Life can therefore be understood as ladder shopping: searching for that one ladder that embodies Truth and Meaning. If life is the search for Truth -- and I believe we all know deep down it is -- that search for Truth must take the priority for our lives, particularly in the next few years. Let’s not postpone or neglect the search, lest we pay with decades of emptiness and futility, or worse yet, with a failed life, one in which Truth was never discerned. 

    Before concluding, let's examine the experiences of a man named Dave Dravechi. Dravechi was a professional baseball pitcher. He identified himself very closely with the sport he loved. Dravechi explained, "My pitching arm was to me what hands are to a concert pianist, what legs are to a ballerina, and what feet are to a marathon runner. It was what people cheered me for, what they paid their hard-earned money to see. It was what made me valuable, what gave me worth, at least in the sight of the world." However, Dravechi’s baseball career was ended by cancer in this very throwing arm. Dravechi saw that baseball was an identity inadequate for the crucible of life. Any identity which can be destroyed by injury, accident, death, or calamity needs to be discarded and replaced by a more dependable identity.

    Centuries ago, the Roman Publius Syrus said, "Whatever you can lose, you should reckon of no account." Syrus recognized that most things we value in life -- whether fame, fortune, spouse, friends, or children -- must be lost sooner or later and thus cannot embody Truth or Meaning. To base one’s identity on such mutable things would be foolish. Understanding this, Dave Dravechi was able to give up baseball, something he could not keep, and retain something more important, Truth, which he could not lose. Dravechi saw that one identity Ñ and only one Ñ could survive every assault life might throw at him. Only his relationship with the living, loving, unchanging God. 

    We're all going somewhere in life from this common threshold. But are the places we're going really places we'll be glad we've reached when we get there . . . if we get there? We mustn't forget to enjoy life, nor to consider it with sober judgment. Let's seize the days ahead to diligently search for Truth and Meaning, never afraid to ask the hard questions and face their frightening implications. Let's accept the challenge of Jim Elliot: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Let's pick the right ladder so that we secure a productive and meaningful life beyond the present threshold . . . and beyond the final threshold.