The Four L's of the High School Reunion

Opening Night of the Class of 1983

I never thought I would be blogging “real-time” from my 30^th reunion, but after attending the first night's festivities, I was overwhelmed with positive feedback, so I will try again.

[Note:  we'll see how many people really follow-up with a view at this installment; now that we’ve all come here to Dallas to celebrate our 30^th reunion. The build-up is over, the event has kicked-off!

The comments on Facebook© this morning speak to a lot of this; it was funny how so many drank a little too much, and thought the music was too loud?!]

I was blown away. For a group pushing 50, everyone looked very good. Too busy living life to focus on this reunion as much as the two previous reunions; I perceived the Thursday night group was as pure as I can expect for a group of Highland Parkers. Maybe it was the lack of spouses at the event last night, but it got real in a hurry.

My impression was that raising your kids in Highland Park was not as big a priority as the last time we met. In 2003, it seemed a badge of honor to afford, live, and send your kids to Highland Park schools.

This time, it seemed that people were just glad to be in attendance; notwithstanding the neighborhood in which they lived. Much of the conversation was going back to the points together in school, just as much as what we do in the present day.

The fact that so many people thanked me personally for writing what I thought about the approach to this 30th reunion shows me that the space between our lives is smaller than we think. This is a breakthrough weekend.

On the drive into Dallas, the satellite radio “oldies channel” prepared me for the thoughts I had tonight. The period music took me back to the places where it played as a soundtrack to high school. The time in the presence of my old friends did the same thing.

Quick thoughts about “expectations” for those who are coming in today:

Just hug your friends, everyone deserves a good hug. It’s been too long

Listen for those dramatic turning points in their story where life turned on a dime

Tell your story in a few words, respecting the difficulties that brought your friends to this place; they are just as important facts as yours

Parents love to talk about their kids! Listen to the “child stories” and re-live the joy of mothers and fathers; so many have watched their babies grow up and leave the nest

Acknowledge the pain, and the joy that your friend endured or celebrated in order to arrive at this place tonight

I want to specifically remember something about another person and our time together in school, thirty years ago; especially so I can thank them for what they did to make it so fun back in the 70s and 80s. The world was such a different place and the culture dealt with fewer deep issues, in my opinion.

Listen. Laugh. Love. Live. Those four L’s are the touch-points of this reunion.

See you tonight at the P.

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Open Letter to the Class of 1983

See you in September

I can’t decide whether I'm more excited about college football starting again, or the few weeks until my 30^th high school reunion. Thoughts go back to those years when your age seemed frozen and the future appeared far off in the distance; the way you feel when you have plenty of time before a flight, checked-in and ready—no pressure, no hurry.  We were comfortable back in the 70s & 80s.

My class graduated in late May 1983, and although we had no idea about Madonna when her album debuted that summer, we launched out from there; lives moving rapidly from one stage to the next, unevenly aligned with decades, but furiously reaching one road sign after the next. Most of us went off to college, many stayed in Texas, some even settled in Big D to raise their families. Won't a few of you from faraway lands come to this reunion?! It would be fun to guess who comes from farthest away. London, Hawaii, Australia?

How can we be at the third reunion? Each celebration so far has been unique in its theme:

• 10^th was just another big party like many of the weddings I attended; pretty nervous walking up to Winfrey Point clubhouse, I pondered why I hadn't given the concept much thought?
• 20^th was the “Vice-President Reunion,” as everyone climbed the ladder of success rapidly and came ready to show off their progress. (How could everyone in the room be a Vice-President?). I thought it a fairly insincere bridge from the early reunion to the upcoming milestone of 2013.

My impression is that with this class reunion, all who attend will feel lucky to be there, and everyone by this time has taken some lumps:  suffered through some bout of death, divorce, disease, disaster, and/or depression. It will be something from which we did not overcome with the same pride and fervor thought to have come so easily at our 20^th anniversary.

"That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond." From Ann Voskamp’s quote there is encouragement to seek conversations and renew relationships in a sincere, transparent way; allowing friends to see through the thin, torn patches in one's personal tapestry, for they are the passages by which one sees the real insides of my being, and hopefully the beautiful light of God beaming through them.

I believe this time the grace of a group approaching their 50s outstrips our natural tendency to fudge, judge, or peacock in front of our classmates. This platform of life takes time and skill to climb onto; and so we welcome our friends to a wonderful point in which the pretense of success, status, and class, pale in comparison to the love and joy we will experience as we share each other’s foibles, struggles, and humility.

At first it will be difficult to peel the layers of the onion back; we’ll fall back to the natural, “I’m great, the kids are super; Yes, I do have it all put together just as it seems.” However, as we break through to authenticity, it's fortunate that we really made it here at all, considering what has happened; at this point there is hope for a renewed camaraderie among humble old friends. This reunion presents a rare opportunity to re-connect, review, and even de-construct some of the "archetypes" manifested in previous meetings. But how many of the graduates have the courage to show up and tell their (real) story?

My story certainly has some twists and turns too strange for fiction, and I know that your story will take my breath away at some point during its telling. It’s been such a long time since we thought of each other, but thankfully there’s still so much we have in common. There are strong mysterious links which enchain the heart to the regions where the morn of life was spent.

With all due respect to the writing of Gail Godwin in her novel The Finishing School, I am expecting to meet two kinds of people at my 30^th high school reunion:

“One kind, you can tell just by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves.

It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more surprises from it.” These people are doing just fine with themselves and I say, “more power to ‘ya,” or to be perfectly frank, and to use the phrase so enthusiastically used in the South when we just don’t quite know what to think: “well, bless your heart?!”

Godwin’s character Ursula continues, “Whereas, the other kind keeps moving, changing. With these people, you can never say, “X stops here,” or “Now I know all there is to know about Y.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re unstable. Ah, no, far from it. They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young.”

“In my opinion,” Ursula says, “They are the only people who are still alive.”

One unambiguous characteristic of this second group of people will surely be that they seize life with gusto. Contrary to the self-doubt that creeps into my mind sometimes when I think of the ups and downs of my career path; at least I had the courage to change, when the time to change was apparent. I will likely gravitate to and appreciate those who took on life’s challenges with passion, and I look forward to reliving some of my friends’ most perilous moments. 

To quote Jack London’s credo as told by a reporter named Ernest Hopkins:

“I would rather be ashes than dust!

 I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

 I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

 The function of man is to live, not to exist.

 I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

 I shall use my time.”

For those of us who make it back to HP in September, may that credo be the cry of the class of 1983.

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Praying for young people and Revival

Every year at HC, the faculty and staff pray that God would revive us again; that the teachers would be facilitators of joy among the students, so that they might rejoice in God, draw near to God, seek his kingdom, and his righteousness. 

With all this prayed over, there is then a peace that all the things of the coming school year would be added to them as it progresses. Everything will work out fine. In August every year the train leaves the station and picks up speed as it roars to the graduation ceremony in May. There are nice “rest” stops along the way but so much is accomplished that a fatigue builds up due to the “labor” of the school year. We started out this year well, breaking in the new principal, hosting numerous events, football and volleyball games, a capital campaign moving "Forward in Faith," new athletic conference announced [“SPC”], recruiting next year’s freshman, and many other tasks. It is a busy place, but a hopeful place!

Pray for Revival

I recently heard a Yale professor David H. Gelernter speak about the possibility of religious revivial starting with our young people:

"The next great American religious revival will start, my guess is, on (high school or) college campuses —and it will start fairly soon. The need is great, for they are the driest timber I have ever come across. In a spiritually dried-out land where “careers” alone are holy, the thirst is acute. Mostly they know little or nothing about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or greatness. They are empty--spiritually bone dry--because no one has ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having. Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin gruel for intellectually growing young people."

Gelernter thinks that "someone will start preaching." 

Maybe it is an ordained pastor from RUF? (www.ruf.org) or a high school chaplain like Drew Zeiler?

Audiences will be small at first, but young people want to hear this message:

‘Forget your career and think about your family.

Forget your rights and think about your duties.

Forget your bank account and think about your country.

Forget yourself and think about your God.’...

"(S)omeday soon some sympathetic disciple of the founding fathers will compose the indispensable companion to our Bill of Rights...a Bill of Duties that conveys the exact same truths in terms of responsibility, instead of entitlement." (Gelernter continues...)

"Let the right person speak to them, and they will turn back to the Bible with an excitement and exhilaration that will shake the country. In reading the Bible they will feel as if they are going home--which is just what they will be doing. Nothing would do America more good than a biblical homecoming."  (David Gelernter)

At Houston Christian ["HC"] students are exposed to a biblical world and life view. Many are "un-churched" or merely "seekers" of the ways of Jesus. But at least they get to hear from this important book, see how other Christians live out their daily walks with Him. In addition to great Bible teachers at HC, they have access to peer-to-peer discipleship groups after school, if they want to talk about their questions and walk with fellow students as they grow in spiritual maturity. It is my hope that God will send out leaders from HC who will help other college students (even the ones at Yale, prof. Gelernter) to see there is a higher calling in life than just materialism, consumption, power, money and lust. I hope that they feel responsible for the next generation of American exceptionalism, and that God will be important in their lives. If this happens then all these things will be added unto us.