By Peter Bratt

Staff Writer

Upon leaving the trenches of World War I, filled with the bodies of various nations fighting over now seemingly insignificant pieces of dirt, Robert Graves wrote his great work ``Goodbye to All That.'' The book came out in 1929, and since its release has come to symbolize the failure and stupidity of the ``war to end all wars.''

Ninety years past that war, we are still fighting armed and unarmed struggles across the planet. Yet, war since 1918 has taken on a different character, as the horrors of killing are brought to our living rooms via CNN, and we spend more time trying to avoid fighting and pursue peace. War is, except for a few folks in the Bush administration, no longer a glamorous struggle idealized by poets and seen as the manner by which a civilization maintains its vigor.

Just as Graves' days were forever tied with the year 1914, so have many of our lives been marked by our arrival at Calvin College. I still can remember the first day I was driven to campus by my parents, a grand distance of five miles. I was settled in my room, with the September heat setting, rather bored and nervous about the classes that were to begin the next day. All of a sudden, someone knocked on the door and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. Not exactly a social butterfly in high school, I jumped at the prospect and spent the next three hours watching ``Scream 2.'' I still haven't seen the other ``Scream'' movies, but the middle film holds a special place in my heart. To say the least, I was surprised and grateful for the friendship shown to me that night.

Like many at Calvin, I have found love when least expecting it, received my share of hard work and academic success, been blessed with a renewed assurance of faith and many things other things that shall remain unmentioned. In four years on this campus, I have felt extremely blessed by students, staff and faculty. I feel a deep appreciation for the faculty that are willing to teach day in and out; it can't be easy to drive their clunker Oldsmobile on campus every day and see students' new Jetta.

Still, with merely three weeks until graduation, it is hard to say how much of an impact my college years will have on the rest of my life. Clearly, it marked the end of youth, and perhaps the beginning of adulthood for many of us, yet with each phase in life comes the need for different lessons to be learned. After spending four years of learning why capitalism works, or the reasons for the coming of the Middle Ages, many lessons that were imparted will disappear within a few years at worse, or last until the nursing home at best.

For a young man such as Robert Graves, who spent his childhood learning the virtues of empire, racial superiority and the beauty of war, the remainder of his days saw only the destruction of the British holdings, the revolt and independence of the races enslaved under the name of civilization, and the brutality of war. In a world which is continually changing, the education that was imparted for the world of 2002, is not going to cover all the bases when we hit our thirties and forties. While we must never forget the basis of our Calvin education, the development of a Christian mind, we must use our Christ-given abilities and skills to make our world closer to the perfection of the Kingdom of God.

Thus as my college years end, I am often in the mood to say ``Good-bye to All That.'' Good-bye to West Michigan and its conservativism that is assumed to be given by God. Good-bye to all those floor dates and movie nights. Good-bye to the summer jobs and moving home for a summer. Good-bye to all that. Our childhood is over, and since we have been given so much, a great much more will be expected from us. Our years will be no ordinary time, our days that are an instance in the time of the world will see great numbers of changes. We the graduates of Calvin College in the year of our Lord 2002 must think outside the box, seek the solutions that are seemingly out of reach and pursue the goals that are mere imagination in this present world.

In the end, we the graduates of Calvin College in 2002 will return to the earth from which we came, dust to dust. Our lives will be mentioned in passing, from our walks around the campus, to our time in the class. In short, our days our numbered, as in the end we must say ``Goodbye to All That.''

However, my years at Calvin were clearly the beginning of understanding, if such an understanding could ever be known. It is absurd for the finite to grasp what is infinite and a supreme good, but at Calvin, my understanding of the goodness of the Lord was not limited to an hour on Sunday, or for fifteen minutes every morning during the neo-pagan Chapel rituals. Rather, the surprise was all mine, as the presence of God appeared in the woods, during a drive and quite often in the stars at night. It may never appear to be our moment in the sun, but when in life is the moment ever perfect except when we pursue what is outside the world? May we appear beautiful in the eyes of the Lord, as we say good-bye to all that on earth in the twinkling of an eye.