Celebrate Your Life

It’s the month of June – a time for graduations, when summer officially begins, and it is also a time of celebrations and sometimes of moving on.  Every June I travel to Southern California to sing at the graduation of a school for emotionally handicapped kids that my sister owns.  These are kids that may have Asperger’s syndrome, or just enough “issues” that the regular school system can’t deal with them, so they are sent to my sister’s school. The main thing I take away every year from this graduation ceremony is how the kids react when they are acknowledged for what they have accomplished in the year.  There are trophies and special certificates given out to almost every child acknowledging things like attendance, sports, grades, and any contribution that was made to others and to the school.  When the kids walk up to get their award they have a kind of “I’m so cool” strut with this attitude of “yea whatever, it’s no big deal.”… and yet, from my vantage point of being on the stage and looking at them when my sister hands them their award, a visible change takes place on their face of pride and happiness… and then they turn back around to walk back to their seats and go right back to the “yea it’s no big deal” strut.

It makes me wonder how often (if ever) we do that – take the time to acknowledge ALL the little victories or milestones in our life and truly celebrate them.  It seems our culture is one that celebrates these events mainly by going out to eat, and maybe making a toast to someone.  Is that really enough?  I believe strongly in the idea of rituals and taking the time to mark every milestone in our lives so that when we do move on, or have closure, it feels complete and there is space for whatever is new to come in.

So in this month I invite us all to take time to celebrate ourselves or others by doing some kind of simple ritual that basically says “Yea for me – I did it!!!!”