Winding Down

I’m at the place in the academic calendar that exists in no other profession I know. I can look at a calendar and a syllabus and know exactly what remains to be done to complete this semester’s work. I can put a date and a deadline to it. In a matter of exactly 35 days I will turn in final grades and close the books on four months of work and I will have three weeks to get ready for the next round. Then, in early January, I’ll walk into the classroom to new faces and start all over. It won’t be a Groundhog Day experience either. The new faces will bring new questions, new responses, and new experiences. And then, sixteen weeks later, I will close the books again.

It is that sense of closure that is unique. It all starts at one time and it all comes to a appropriate end at one time. It is done. Completed. Finished. If it went well, a sense of satisfaction envelopes it all. If a class did not go so well, then do-overs are just a couple of weeks away.

And the calendar comes with a pause built in, something that most of life does not. Just before the final burst of energy required to produce the papers and study for the exams that will close the semester (or to mark those papers and grade those exams), a Thanksgiving or Spring Break shows up. When that last effort is expended, a pause is there prior to starting again.

I did not appreciate this rhythm so much when I was a student, because it was the only experience I’d ever known from age five to twenty-five. Then, fresh out of graduate school in my first pastorate, I did not so much notice it was gone. I entered into the seasonless cycle of ministry in which sermons were due every week, crises arose unexpectedly, Christmas and Easter meant more sermons, meetings continued unabated throughout the year, and any pauses had to be intentionally inserted into the busyness. None were really natural. When the pause was complete, you did not start over. You picked up where you left off. Nothing ever came to an end. It was energizing, exciting, and enjoyable.

When I took a full-time teaching job in 1982 I became aware of the academic rhythm. I stepped out of the endless demands of the pastorate and back into the sanity of working, pausing, and working again. I lived there for five years. Then I returned to the work that never ends. This time I noticed the difference. I found I had to make the effort to insert the pauses that are necessary. I needed to relish the tasks that I completed, even if others, yet unfulfilled, overlapped them. I needed days off, days of prayer, retreat, and sabbatical to study, to stay rested and fresh. If I did not take them, they did not come.

Now I am once again hearing the rhythm of the scholar's calendar. It is familiar and inviting. The work this semester has been intense. Teaching three classes I have never taught before and preaching on weekends has been like preparing and delivering seven sermons a week. The emotional stress of meeting hundreds of new people and wading into a completely unfamiliar work system has made its demands on my naturally introverted self. Being away from home during the week has deprived me of my most dependable support. The semester has been challenging, enjoyable, and demanding. And now it is winding down. Next week, a pause. Then three weeks of the final stretch. Then a pause. I like it.