My first son just turned 18. He is not my eldest child, but he's my first potentially draftable one. His sister preceded him by 18 months, so this birthday was not a "first" for us as parents, but he is the first young man we've raised. The day felt important to me.

We celebrated in a way none of us would have anticipated 12 months ago - at a Lebanese restaurant in Bukit Bintang, the Times Square of Kuala Lumpur, eating hummus and shish kebab while enduring the undisguised stares of the heavily disguised young woman in a burkha sitting across the room from us. We do make an imposing party, I guess, when all nine of us occupy the same space on the planet. Which happens all too infrequently now for my taste. My son and his slightly older sister are leaving for six weeks of backpacking in SouthEast Asia tomorrow, after which time they will be home for a week or two here or there until college, until life. We'll all have the same address for college bills, but not for much else.

So I wrote him a letter. I wrote it quickly, and did not even have a chance to proofread it, since by the time I was finishing it someone else was clamoring for breakfast, and someone else needed a ride to ballet, and I was afraid if I read it again I might decide parts of it were not just right and I would save it for a rewrite which I knew would never happen. So I sealed it in blue airmail envelope - the only kind I could find at the moment - and tucked it in a drawer where it sat till cake and presents time. I gave it to him along with his gifts of ear pods, hemp bracelets handmade by his sisters, a travel-size sketch book and pencils, his smallest sister's sacrificial cache of Legos, a CD called something about the Wretched Exiles recorded in someone's family room, and some DVDs from the neighborhood pirated movie store.

I wanted to say something to him as he walked out my door, figuratively as well as literally. The literal part is not so hard; it's the figurative part that's killing me. I don't say wise things well, and I don't have really personal talks with my kids often, like Bill Cosby and Meredith Baxter-Birney do on the old TV shows we've been watching lately. Sometimes I even find myself hoping my kids are listening when the wise parents on the show say something significant - parenting by sit-com, I guess. But my son has spent the last seven months on the road already, seeing movies we'd never watch in our living room, and rubbing shoulders with people who won't give such wholesome advice, so I wanted to seize the moment and say something that he might remember sometime when he had a choice to make.

What I wanted to say first of all was be brave rather than safe. That's not an original thought, I read an address a few months ago with this idea as its central theme. But it seemed like the best piece of advice to give a young man on the verge of everything. Be wise, be circumspect, be careful about which countries you hitchhike in, register your presence with the US Embassy, but in the big life choices, choose brave over safe. Dare to do what is good and noble even if it feels risky and it scares you and everyone else you know is making the safe choice.

Take care of the poor and needy; speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, share your bread with the hungry and your clothes with the naked. Don't turn your back on or just forget about the many, many people in the world who do not have the blessings you do. Remember Micah 6:8 - do justice and love mercy. Make it your life's work.

Understand that life is short and that you have only one chance to spend the time you have been given. Time is not like money - if you squander it you cannot repent of your foolishness, pay off your debts, work hard and replenish your bank account. There is no way to get more time once you have spent what you have. So spend it wisely, even now when it seems like you have forever at your disposal. Remember that is an illusion.

Fianlly, remember your true citizenship is in Heaven. No earthly loyalty, ideology, political alliance or cause should ever cause you to forget that you are a stranger and pilgrim here, an ambassador for a kingdom that will never build an embassy in any of the world's capital cities. Don't confuse your loyalties or lose sight of your true allegiance.

And although I didn't say this, I hope he can read between the lines: Don't forget to call your mother every now and then.