It's graduation season, and for someone like me in academia it means donning the commencement regalia and participating in all the pomp and circumstance that accompanies this important rite of passage. I have to remind myself what a big deal this is to the students who endeavored themselves to their field of study to emerge a degree holder (with all the rights and privileges there unto). I remind myself because I am easily jaded - but predictably, when the faculty procession begins it hits me why we elevate this achievement. It is significant when we acknowledge finishing something that not only requires attention, but also effort and persistence. This is not to say, however, that we paint too rosy a picture of the next steps ahead, or gloss over the fact that the uncertainty that comes in the transition may cause us to doubt everything that we've journeyed through. Sometimes we lay on the platitudes too thickly and forget that we ought to inject a dose of reality in which the stars do not align and the worst is yet to come. Enter again the cynic. But the cynic in me is quieted when I realize there are only a number of finishes we make until the cycle ends and an eternity of celebrating the finished work of Christ commences.