By Mike Acheson Contributing columnist
EDITOR’S NOTE: Because of a clerical error, the Friday, July 9, “Issues of Faith” column by contributing columnist Mike Acheson was cut.
The full column appears below.
In the late 70s – that is the 1970s – Peter Frampton released a double live album that pretty much everyone of my age group bought. I was transitioning from high school to college; kind of like going from being a young kid, to an older kid.
In June of ’77, I graduated from Bellevue High with nary a care in the world about anything. It was just music all the time, and we all had lots of hair. Boston, Van Halen, basically suburban rock n roll which is now called “classic” rock and which, of course, us 50-year-old guys still sometimes listen to.
As a graduation gift that year I received a Canon AT-1 camera. I remember opening it at the kitchen counter and kind of going, “Hey, cool.” I wanted to be out of the house, to be on my way, and if I had a nice camera to take with me, all the better. Even Starsky and Hutch was beginning to seem old.
June 18th of this year, 33 years later, I was still using this Canon camera, only this time to take pictures of my oldest daughter graduating from Port Angeles High School. The case has practically disintegrated, but it still takes fantastic pictures and I can’t seem to part with it. Snapping shots outside the high school made me think of time – how it just keeps going, day after day, slow and fast, without pause – and the moments that you might want to cherish forever come at you, then fade, and are replaced but not forgotten, sometimes only recognizable when a memory is jogged by a picture, a snapshot, in your hand.
I have taken thousands of pictures with my Canon. It followed me through my college and Marine Corps years, trips and vacations, and most of all as a chronicle of my kids from their diaper days to the moment when Port Angeles is in their rearview mirror. I recall vividly the shaggy-haired days when I was learning how to use it and many of the days in between; really an odyssey of my life and this had made me take stock and wonder curiously – have I done a good job, the job I was supposed to do, and have I been a good father, husband, son, brother, and friend? The camera I held in my hand has been through all of this and has seen everything I have seen, and I don’t take this lightly.
Maybe it is just a touch of nostalgia seeing child number three journey off to college; I don’t know. Summer, anyway, is kind of a transition time and many folks are experiencing the thought of seeing things change, kids coming and going, changing grades or making lives for themselves away from mom and dad’s nest. Seniors in high school have a limited vocabulary.
When asked a question you get “I don’t know.” When told something you get, “I know.” This has been the case from all three of our seniors and my wife and I hope to break that trend with two more upcoming, but are not very hopeful.
As far as I remember my parents never said anything to me my senior year, and I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. I still got a nice camera though.
My wife and I reminisce about our formative years and both realize that our lives would have been much fuller, more thoughtful, and less chaotic had God even been a small part of our lives and youthful moments. God was there, but in my case especially, I wasn’t returning the favor. At the time I think I thought I knew everything, but as someone famous once said, “Only a true wise man understands the depth of his ignorance.” Humility, believe it or not, can take you a long way.
Now, when we approach God in prayer and through prayer, it is with humility born of experience, but most kids don’t see this yet. My wife and I remember the age well, and the anchor that Jesus brings to our life now, and this is all that we are trying to ingrain in our kids – this generation – because some things don’t change, are perfect as they are. We usher them out the door with a prayer on our lips, which is not such a bad way to go.
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Mike Acheson is a lay minister at Queen of Angels Roman Catholic Church in Port Angeles.