Ready, or Not . . .

I've just finished up teaching a three-day intensive course in Wesleyan Theology alongside my colleague, Joe Culumber. I had forgotten how tired I can get in the classroom--my voice becoming strained and my joints starting to ache. As a professor, one feels constrained to somehow "carry" a course, even when the pedagogical method may be varied and involve group work.

In the midst of all of this, I've been trying to get ready for the new semester with undergraduates which begins tomorrow. While I'm excited to be back where I belong, I haven't quite yet adjusted to the pace of things or, even worse, the noise all around me. While there were occasional conversations, laughter, and the drone of the liturgy at St. John's, here the pound of woofers out a dorm window and the incessant chatter of the campus create a din compared to the relative quiet and sedateness of the monastic community.

So, the time has come to roll up one's sleeves and dig in once again. At least I got word yesterday that I won't have to chair a sub-committee for Faculty Review--something I've done every spring for about the last six years. For the time being I can concentrate on learning new names, adjusting to about three hundred new faces in chapel, and trying to impart some knowledge about the Pauline Epistles, the Reformation, and Worship. Happily, all of that adolescent testosterone and estrogen may be what I need to feel alive again.