Regaining Equilibrium

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.  ~Norbet Platt

This semester, I am teaching a course called "Nonfiction Prose and Its Process."

Every week, I gather with nine students to discuss a certain author's writing process and works.  So far, I've introduced them to Donald Miller, Frank McCourt, David McCullough, Jon Krakauer, and Dave Eggers.  The students discuss what they like, what "works"and what they admire or find intriguing; we take turns reading passages aloud.  

Teaching Nonfiction Prose and Its Process has been, in a word, idyllic.   

They read.  They discuss.  They connect.  They engage.     

Every week, we meet in the campus coffee shop and they write.  Together, we've decided what the week's focus/motivation/"jumping off point" will be.  We base the focus on the author we're studying -- so sometimes they've written memoir, sometimes spiritual reflection.  They think about when and how they behave as writers.   They think about process. 

They write.   They are honest.  They are vulnerable.  They are intensely personal.  

Their courage challenges and inspires me. 

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.  ~Sylvia Plath

No, but...

It comes up.

I sort of steel myself for it every semester, as new faces fill the seats and a fresh batch of students are initiated into English 100.

Every fall and spring, they suffer through my corny jokes and big smiles and we write and revise and write and revise and revise and revise again -- and usually, they hate the process but seem to be okay with me...and that's how we learn to be writers, these amazing freshmen and I.

I am fully myself with them because I want them to be fully themselves with me. 

So, it comes up.  The question came this semester during the fifth week. I mentioned something funny that happened to me on a first date, and one of my student athletes stopped chewing her gum and called out "you're not married?" in an incredulous tone which made me love her.

"Nope," I said, wiggling my ring finger at the class.  "See? No ring."

They looked at me, and a few raised their hands to ask more questions, but I blushed and chickened out and distracted them with a corny joke while pretending not to see the hands.  

I wish I had been more honest in my response.  I wish I had said, to these fresh-on-the-cusp-of-life freshmen who are so good to me:

  

Awww, College Freshmen

"Do you know where Professor so-and-so's classroom is? I went there yesterday but she wasn't there..."

Substantialiscious

Last week I went to pick up my mail from the faculty lounge, and I found a snickers bar and a note in my mailbox. The back of the snickers bar read "substantialiscious" and the note said:

The young woman who wrote it is a student from my very first year of teaching here, and she'll graduate next May (2012).  I haven't had her in class for several years, but every time I see her on campus, we talk about life and love and randomness.  She is a bright, beautiful, vivacious young woman who loves the Lord, and I am immensely touched that she took the time to encourage me.  Christ's love is so evident in her life.  

I'm so blessed. 

I am turning thirty-three in less than six weeks.  There are many "jobs" I thought I'd be doing at this point in my life.  Driving carpool, tucking children into bed, nursing boo-boo's, making sure my husband felt loved and respected -- if you'd asked me ten years ago what job I'd have at thirty-three, those are the ones I saw for myself. 

And yet...

God knew better.  Philippians 4:19.  He is meeting ALL of my needs according to the glorious riches I have in Christ Jesus. 

So this "job" teaching college students -- a job where I am welcomed into minds and hearts so freely; a job where I spend as much time listening and praying with students as I do lecturing and "teaching" them; a job where I can SEE God moving in individuals and changing lives -- obviously, this job is no job at all.  It is the Best.  The Best way to spend my time.  The Best way to spend my life. 

 

Esther 4:14.  For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?

Italics mine :)  As are these students, these years, and this season of my life.  Mine.  By the gracious lovingkindness of a God who sees the depth of my heart and loves me the same.   

I am deliciously -- no, substantialisciously -- blessed :)