Last night was the Junior/Senior Prom at Sehome High School, one of the two public high schools in Bellingham. As has been the case of high school proms in the past, I was looking at pictures of one of the young women in our church who attended the dance with her friends and I was amazed at how grown up and sophisticated she seems. When I think back to my high school prom, I know I felt grown up and sophisticated, but I am also struck by my memories of that evening at how immature and unsophisticated I really was. Prom weekend brings back many different memories for me each year. One thing I remember is what a wonderful date I had. It was my first date with the woman who has become my wife. She made the dress that she wore. I have a picture of her on that night in that dress that I carry in my checkbook. I didn’t know much about love or romance in those days, but somehow I managed to make enough of an impression on her that she agreed to continue to see me. After that date, we were pretty much an item. We didn’t live in the same town or go to the same high school, but the following school year we both entered the same college and we’ve been hanging out together ever since. I know what a difference prom night made in my life.

Of course the world has changed a lot since that evening. The world is different. High school students have different experiences. What is more, I have no idea how typical my high school experience was. It is a long and complex story.

I didn’t stay up late last night. Our children are well past the stage of high school dates and dances and our grandchildren are not at that stage yet, though it won’t be long. Our twelve-year-old grandson is a sixth grader this year. He will be a high school student soon.

Another part of the story of this weekend is that I had to decide what to wear to church today. In a way that surprises me, figuring out what to wear to church has become a bigger problem for me in retirement than it was when I was working. When I was a pastor serving a local church, I always wore a dress shirt and a tie on Sundays. I didn’t have to think about what to wear. But that has all changed, too. Casual dress is the norm at the church of where we are members. Although I am serving as an interim minister of faith formation, it is not expected that I dress up for Sunday worship. I’ve worn a suit and tie twice this spring, once on Easter and again on the weekend we hosted the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ. Both times I was the only person in the church who was wearing a suit and tie. I don’t see many men wearing ties these days. Casual dress is a bigger challenge for me. I don’t feel right wearing jeans or cargo pants to worship on Sunday, so I still wear dress slacks most weeks. I usually wear a long sleeved shirt with a collar, though there are plenty of polo and t shirts in the congregation.

Today is wear orange day. Fortunately I do own a couple of orange shirts. I like bright colors. Our church is observing Wear Orange Weekend, and there is a special program set for the church parking lot after worship for National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Weekend. It is a national observance that begins with a tragic story.

On January 21, 2013, Hadiya Pendleton marched in President Obama’s second inaugural parade. One week later, Hadiya was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago. Soon after this tragedy, Hadiya’s friends commemorated her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others. Wear Orange is not observed every June. Thousands of people wear the color orange to honor Hadiya and the more than 43,000 Americans killed and approximately 76,000 others shot and wounded every year.

The students who attended prom last night have grown up in a world that expects gun violence. They have been through lock downs when threats of violence were detected at their schools. They have grown up with news of gun violence that can occur in all kinds of places: an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; a party in San Bernardino, and graduation ceremonies. We mourn that our students have come to accept this threat as a normal part of their lives.

And I have a personal story of my own life that makes this observance important to me. I’ve told the story a lot of times and I don’t want to write all of the details in my journal today, but the short version of the story is that on that prom night - the night of my first date with the woman who now has been my wife for nearly 50 years - I was awakened a few hours after having gotten to bed with the news that my oldest sister had died. She had been shot while dancing with her husband.To say the least, my memories of that weekend are mixed. And it is a bit unsettling for me to have Wear Orange Weekend and prom weekend come together in our community.

I won’t be telling the story of my prom weekend today, though I did share the picture of Susan in her prom dress with the mom of a high school student who attended prom last night. All I said was that prom left me with life-long good memories. It is true, but that is only part of my story. What I will do today is to wear orange to church - a shirt that I would never wear with a suit and a tie. And, after church, as people gather in the parking lot to hear speakers including a state senator and the chief of police in the city where I live, the program will begin with a lone trumpeter playing taps. That will be my contribution to the program. That bugle call is always accompanied with a lot of memories for me. I’ve played it a lot of times. Today I add another layer of meaning to the song.