Day Two: Attacking the To-Do List

 My list of things I plan to get done before classes resume in January is long, but manageable. It’s funny how much we overestimate what we can do in a short time, but miss by a mile how much we can accomplish over a decade. But I don’t have a decade, I have three weeks.

Today I revised the syllabuses (syllabi?) for two courses. I teach the same ones every semester: Life and Work of a Pastor (PAST 7336) and Leadership in Christian Ministry (LEAD 7301). The Spring semester will be the sixth and seventh time I have taught those courses, respectively. I don’t do well stuck in a rut, so I change the courses each time I teach them. In the first three semesters the changes were radical – course organization, assignments, schedules. I have settled into an approach in each that feels comfortable and effective. So now I change a text book or two in each course each time. This redirects class discussion, provides different papers to read, and keeps me from getting bored. The good news is that there are plenty of books out there. I’m even working on writing one of my own. At least that’s on my To-Do List.

Making these changes to the syllabus and rearranging my Blackboard sites to match took up most of the day. I have another course to get to – Introduction to Mentoring (MENT 7300). I have only taught it once, so I’m still in the radical change mode there. It will be quite different this semester. But I didn’t get to that one today. The To-Do List is on hold for a week or so.

Tomorrow I will pack up things and drive to Houston to join my family for Christmas weekend. Tomorrow all of my kids and their spouses and kids will be in one place at one time. This is the first time we have all been assembled since Christmas 2006. We’ll have a day at Alan & Kat’s house of just us. After that, it gets crazy. I don’t want to think about it. Let’s just say that there will be fourteen people and three dogs spending the night in the same house on Christmas Eve.

Early next week Melinda and I will return to the farm to work on those things that need to get taken care of during the in-between time of Christmas break. My list includes that last syllabus, finalizing four presentations for a gig at the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in Chicago at the end of January, editing some work for a friend who has a book in process, preparing to preach at UBC for the first time in two years, preparing to preach at Truett in February, and getting ready for friends to arrive for the New Year’s weekend. I’ll get to all those things eventually, though probably not next week.

The To-Do List is not really a thing to be attacked or conquered, despite the title above. Those lists are what our lives are comprised of.  The lists are to be loved, lived, nurtured, cared for, not attacked. The To-Do List signals that I have a life to live, that I am free. Prisoners do not have To-Do lists. The lonely in nursing homes do not have To-Do lists. Patients in an ICU do not have To-Do lists. So my list sits before me reminding me that I have a life, responsibilities, relationships, gifts, abilities, opportunities, and a few obligations.