Where Does the Time Go?

At the risk of sounding like a little old lady, I find myself wondering, sometimes aloud, where the time has gone. And here she crops up again when I say, it seems like just yesterday when I started teaching here at Burris, and now the school year has about two months left. A little less than two months. The time has simply flown past.

In a fashion true to myself, I have already begun planning in my head for next year. I know that grammar is going to be a once a week activity, probably Mondays, and then everything we write that week will incorporate that grammatical lesson. I know that I am going to choose two novels for each grade level, one memoir, which the students will choose from a list I will provide, and one straight up nonfiction book. There will also be a poetry unit and a comic unit. That’s six long units in which we will address different questions, different levels of thinking, and different styles of writing. This should make for a more cohesive school year and more beneficial writing/reading connections.

On a personal level, I feel as if my life right now is the most settled it’s been since maybe early high school. I feel calm and at a strange peace. I have many things I want, but I know this life is fleeting, and there are so many more important things than my personal desires or creature comforts. I think this Lent I’ve had a chance to reflect on not only food, but also my spiritual journey. I need to make it right between God and myself and other creatures. It’s not a personal relationship.

It’s not a waterfall of honey as we sang like a bunch of lemmings in church a couple of Sundays ago. Well, I say we loosely. I couldn’t sing it all because I kept thinking, “Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians,” and I probably shouldn’t sing that to Jesus. So, everyone else sang about how Jesus love is like a waterfall of honey, which aside from sounding very sexual also doesn’t sound very appealing. It’d be a bit too sticky for my liking.

But, it’s not about that. It’s about how this whole big world connects. It’s about you and me and how we have that same eternal God part. It’s about us looking into each other and seeing each other and recognizing that divine presence in all creatures. God made all of us, and we need to recognize that intrinsic worth in each other. No matter what that other person has done. No matter who that other person is. No matter. We are all part of that same incredible creation.

I recognize the way I am interconnected with all creatures when I run. The route I run the most travels along the White River, bending and weaving as the river does. Along the path, there are inevitably some ducks and geese milling about quacking and honking. Sometimes the geese hiss and spread their wings, but I talk sweetly to them and explain to them that I love animals so much I don’t eat them or exploit them. Because the geese are relatively tame, though I like to think it has something to do with my reasoning with them, they back away and bob on down to the river. My day is always made better by my interactions with these animals in much the same way that it is also made better by sharing my life with my dogs and my cats. I can get so mad at Celie for being rambunctious,  but she just smiles and licks my hand or leg, as if to say, I know you aren’t really mad, are you?