Right of Passage Moment

It is that time of the year again when young 17 and 18 year old seniors engage in the rite of passage that is high school graduation. Perhaps it is becuase I work with the youth in our church, but this year's graduating class seems very on my mind. I am taken back to that moment in my own life. For many it is the exitement of a sea of empty agendas, the opportunity to leave home, or the end of youth and the beginning of adulthood.
I graduated in 1997. I knew I would be going to Snow College in the fall. Still there was a very serious sense of change and, quite frankly, of accomplishment. I made some decisions in the weeks after I graduated from high school that made possible where I am today. Much of that was formulated on a ritualistic pilgrimage I took with my friend Ryan. This was our senior trip. No not 12 rowdy teenagers in San Diego, just me and Ryan in the mountains. Thats how we liked it. It had taken us a long time to find someone who liked the things we did, and we weren't going to mess around with inviting someone else along just to ruin it. The trip was to a little place called Aspen! It was my Mecca in those days. I had dreamed about going for years. Now I was all grown up, and I was going to do it!
It was the kind of trip I probably couldn't take now. No AC, the only radio was a battery operated boombox which you could barely hear over the wind, and the batteries only lasted until about Soldiers Summit when Bill Cosby's tape just stopped. We camped the entire time, ate alot of fast food, but also made some of our food (which I am sure was atrocious). We had no REAL plan, just wandered around the continental divide. We looked for Starwood in ASpen (where John Denver lived). THe locals were not terribly forthcoming, and we concluded that they had all made a pact to look confused and stupid when people inquired about the most famous neighborhood in Aspen. That wasn't so important though.
The greatest were the Maroon Bells! We roamed around the lake for a few hours. It was stunning. And there weren't many people there.
It was a great trip. It sealed what was already a very strong freindship between Ryan and I. It also sealed some goals and aspirations I had. I remember one morning while Ryan was still sleeping, I got up and was playing the guitar in a camp chair just thinking. I remember being impressed by the hinge point I was at in life and thinking at that moment, that I was going to prepare myself to serve an LDS mission and I was going to make something of my life. I have thought about that moment often since then. It wasn't extraordinary in any other way, just that I committed to myself that it was "time to grow up." I am grateful for that moment. As I look at the young men I work with I always hope that they will have similiar moments of clarity. It has certainly seemed like a gift, every time I have reflected on it.
A great moment.