Dear Class of 2020

Dear Class of 2020,

First, congratulations! High school wasn’t easy. Neither were the years of pre-high school, for that matter. We all tend to look at those coming along behind us with very little sympathy. “We went through those challenges, we tell ourselves, “and we made it through, so what’s the big deal? They’ll survive.” Of course, ours were tougher, and so were we, because we had neither shoes nor buses, it was always snowing, and ours was a time when everywhere we walked was uphill. The true story is that those school years were tough. They were tough for me, and they were tough for you. The hard thing about those times was that we were constantly told what to do. Our parents, teachers, school administrators, lunchroom supervisors, librarians, coaches, and upperclassmen took every opportunity to keep us in line. Oh, we’ll still have rules in the post-high school world, and there’ll be plenty of people with the authority  and responsibility to enforce those rules – bosses, professors, law enforcement officers. But we have a little more wiggle room. We still face consequences for bad decisions, but we aren’t quite so micromanaged as  we were in school. Don’t get me wrong. We needed the tight leash during our school years. It kept us on track for development and maturity, and, let’s be honest, in some cases, it kept us alive. But it was tough – the tight leash. Congratulations for graduating from that!

I graduated from Lakewood High School forty years ago on June 6^th. Class of ’80 – whoo-yeah! While your senior year and graduation experience is unique, your class and mine do have a couple of things in common. I entered the first grade in 1968. Segregation of schools according to race had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court fourteen years before then. But our school system didn’t desegregate until the 1969-70 school year. My first grade class  of about seventy students consisted of only two African American students, and the rest white. My understanding is that attending a school comprised predominantly of a race different from a student’s own was still voluntary that year. My second grade class was about 55% white and 45% African American. Schools in my area were fully integrated that year. I was oblivious to it at the time.  It wasn’t until  I was an adult studying civil rights history that I remembered the difference between those first and second grade classes. 

Obviously, race was a huge issue in my day. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 made discrimination illegal, but there was still a lot of racial tension in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I’m sorry to say, Class of 2020, that we never have resolved those racial tension issues. I wish I could say we had, but you know better. The reason we haven’t resolved it is because we never, as a national people, resolved in our hearts to resolve it in our nation. So, my challenge to you is to do that. Do what we should’ve done but didn’t do. Resolve in your hearts to resolve the race problem in our land. Forty years from now, if you write a letter to the Class of 2060, I hope you can say you  resolved the racial tension issue, so they won’t have to.

Class of 2020, I have one more challenge for you. It’s even more important than the race related one, and it’s around another issue I wish I had done differently. The most important question we will ever answer is: what is your relationship with God like? I discovered the love and power of Jesus Christ in 1983, and I surrendered my life to Him. I wish I had done it sooner, and that I had been more completely committed to Him every day of my walk with Him. I ask you, Class of 2020, to ask God to show you who Jesus really is and what that has to do with you. Then, read the Bible (the book of John is the best place to start.) and let Him reveal Himself to you as you read. Once you come to understand who He is, surrender your life to Him. You’ll be entering an everlasting relationship with Him that will include life, peace, and joy. That’s my challenge to you, and this is my letter to you. Congratulations and may God bless you more than you can imagine!

With Love,

Gabriel Tew