Whirlwinds: Teaching Days and Apprentices

Yesterday was one of those teaching days where I had plans going into the day, with back up plans because I wasn't sure the original plans would work, and then I went with the original.  Let me explain, in case it's useful:

--I had planned to do peer editing with my English 101 class.  I got rough drafts by e-mail, and then I couldn't open most of them, even when students tried to give me editing/access permissions.  Grr.  Some of the students sent in their rough drafts other ways, but I wasn't sure that everyone got the message.

So I went into Monday thinking I'd do Wednesday's lesson (intros, conclusions, and transitions) yesterday if I didn't have the rough drafts.  I was almost sure I was going to do that.  But I printed the rough drafts that arrived over the week-end, and lo and behold, I had them all.  So I shifted back to the original plan, and we did peer editing.

--I hadn't done the speed writing with objects week 1 writing with my nonfiction writing class, and I thought I would do that yesterday.  I knew that one student would be absent, and I wondered if the whole class might be there on Wednesday, if I should wait.  But I also feel we're now in the point of the semester where on any given day, someone will be absent.

We've been in a reading intensive time in that class, so I thought it was good to mix it up a bit.  So I went with the plan:  writing about objects on Monday, one more essay on Wednesday, along with planning for rough draft writing.  But I didn't make that decision until literal moments before the class started.

It went really well, much like the experience I blogged about last week. But unlike last week, I put random collections of objects on the tables.  I did that primarily because there was no time to set up the room before students got there because I have my assigned writing center hour from 11-noon, and the class starts at noon.

My teaching day felt hectic--no down time at all.  I am thinking I need to rethink my office hours, but in some ways, I'm not sure there's a great alternative that works with our current housing, with my spouse commuting down with me to work on our fixer-upper house.

We were both exhausted yesterday, so we settled in to watch The Apprentice.  When the movie first came out, I had no interest in seeing it, but as is often the case with biopics, I slowly changed my mind as I heard other people talk about the movie (interviews and reviews and passing remarks).  It was an amazing piece of work, intriguing to see how the characters made us believe that they were the actual characters that have come to loom so large.  But it was also a good choice for last night because it didn't require much intellectual work--it's not a complicated movie.

I remembered hearing interviews when the movie came out, and so now I'm listening to them again.  I first thought about seeing the movie when I heard the lead actor interviewed on NPR--astonishing to see that I heard that interview back in February of 2025.  Time just zooms along.

Satisfying Sunday: Worship/Cookout in the Pavilion and Reading in the Evening

 Yesterday, I made this Facebook post which sums up my Sunday morning:

"We had a great morning at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, where I preached on Matthew 16 and ended my sermon by asking us to think about how our lives themselves are gospels that testify to the identity of Jesus and his role in our lives. We had a hamburger/hotdog lunch in the pavilion, with delicious food and nourishing fellowship. I'm not sure how the morning could have been much better, short of winning a lottery amount that would let us solve the shortage of affordable housing in the area and provide quality health care for all."

To see a recording of my sermon, go here to my YouTube channel.  To read the manuscript, go to this blog post.

The afternoon was also good.  I did a bit of sewing, caught up on chores, and got ready for the week.  In the evening, my spouse was listening to old Hank Williams songs, and I read--a delight!

I read most of Tara Menon's Under Water last night.  I read a bit of it earlier in the day, in the just after midnight moments of Sunday, where it confused me at first.  It took me a bit of time to realize the narrative is shifting back and forth in time, mainly from 2004 to 2012, but also back to earlier childhood years of the narrator.  I read the Acknowledgements and figured out the tsunami angle. When I picked up the book, I thought it was more of a future apocalypse kind of novel, but it’s a different kind of climate catastrophe novel.

At first it seems like a slight book. But it packs a powerful punch—about a woman who undergoes two catastrophes, the 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

And now, a new week--a week that ends in Quilt Camp.  Let me get ready.

Scrappy Houses

One of the beautiful things about social media is the inspirations that might come on any random day, and not even from people we know.  This morning, a post from a human I don't know (Jim Hankins) came across my Facebook feed.  Here's what the larger quilt looks like:

I might have scrolled on by, if I hadn't read the poster's description of each block as little houses made of scraps, one for each day of the year.  And perhaps more than houses--when I look, I'm also seeing trees.  Here's a close up:

Hmm.  Could I do this without paper piecing?  Stay tuned!

Random Objects in the Creative Writing Classroom

I've written before about using objects as writing prompts (see this blog post for explanation and pictures).  Usually I spread objects out on a table and have students pick one.  We do a variety of types of writing:  description, writing in the voice of the object, free associating to access memories based on the object.  It works well across writing classes.

In my Creative Writing class, half the students have had me in other classes, so I wanted to do a different approach, but still use objects.  We meet in one of the larger classrooms, so I had an idea.  I got to the classroom early and was happy to see that the room was set up with tables in the middle and a ring of tables around the edge of the room.  I decided to use 12 of them as stations.

At first I thought I would put one object per table, and then I thought it would be more interesting to have several objects.  Some tables had connected objects:  for example, on one table I put Christmas ornaments, a Christmas card, a packet of replacement bulbs for a strand of holiday lights.  On another, I kept the objects from the natural world:  3 feathers, a pine cone, and some shells.  Other tables were more random collections.

I was also pleased with how many tactile experiences they could have.  I had two felted pieces, along with chunks of wood and chunks of asphalt.  The cross made out of palm stalks and the waxy, half-burnt candle gave different sensations.  I put out broken strings of beads and broken pottery.

I told students that they would need paper and something to write with, or they could take laptops to write on.  They all chose paper, and I told them to make sure they had enough paper.

Students sat at a table and had 30 seconds to look at the objects.  Then they wrote for 3 minutes.  They could write about the object or write in the voice of the characters we created in past class sessions or explore their own memories.  I wasn't looking at their writing, so they had plenty of latitude, as long as they kept writing.

After three minutes, they moved to the next table, a process which went smoothly.  At the end, I had them read all the writing they had done, marking any that had potential.  I reminded them that they could go deeper, but I wasn't requiring it.  For me, it's too much policing, having students write for 20-30 minutes.

My students seemed to really like the process.  They talked about how many ideas it generated and how much fun it was to write about random objects.  They also talked about their wonder at what all was waiting to be written about--and I reminded them that we live in a world of random objects, so whenever they feel blocked, they should remember this technique.

It's been a really good teaching week, and this experience was one of the highlights.

Endorsed!

I thought about making a Facebook post that said "Endorsed!"  But most people wouldn't know what I meant--they'd rightly ask, "Endorsed by whom?"

On Wednesday, I met for an Endorsement panel for Candidacy in the Southeastern Synod for the ELCA, the more inclusive expression of the Lutheran church in the U.S.  I had already written a 39 page Endorsement essay, which was really 7 writing prompts, which had me do a mix of new writing and including papers written for classes.  So I had already answered a lot of questions that the Candidacy Committee might have had:  why do you want to be Lutheran or why do you want to be ordained or how do you understand Luther's theology for our time?

We talked about some of those answers, of course.  But we spent more time talking about my experiences as a creative/artistic person and as a minister at a small, country church in Bristol, TN.  It was a wonderful experience:  I felt affirmed and supported the whole way through.

I know that I am lucky.  I've heard the Candidacy horror stories, stories across denominations.  My experience was much more like a really deep, really nourishing conversation during a retreat where the real world won't intrude.

I'll probably write more about this experience in weeks to come.  I didn't want to write about the Wed. conversation before I got word about the decision of the larger Candidacy Committee that met yesterday.

By late afternoon, I got the word by way of e-mail:  "Congratulations! The candidacy committee overwhelmingly approved you for endorsement!"

What does this mean? It's the last phase before Ordination. I have an internship to do, which will be at Faith Lutheran, where I am their Synod Appointed Minister. It will be from Advent to Easter. I will meet with the Committee in April, with ordination expected shortly after.

The synod is very supportive of my need to be bi-vocational, as I am now on the tenure track at Spartanburg Methodist College.

Speaking of teaching, let me shift my attention--one last day of teaching to do this week, and if I go now, I can get a quick walk in before the commuting and the teaching.

A Good Stretch of Poetry Days

The past few days have been a good poetry days, in a more well-rounded sense--by which I mean, I've been doing more than just writing down a line or two.  Let me capture what a good stretch of poetry days looks like:

--A few months ago, I had an idea for a poem, Jesus buying a fixer-upper of a house.  I didn't do anything with this idea since I first had it (in late April, as evidenced by this blog post).  But this week, I returned to it, and I'm really delighted with the surprises that the poem offers.

--Yesterday, I read a volume of poems.  My students were working through a time management module and had to enter due dates into calendars and planners.  I thought they would blaze through the assignment, but only a few of them did.  I went back to my office to get something to read.

--That book was Donna Vorreyer's Unrivered.  What an amazing book!  Vorreyer explores themes of aging and the natural world and relationships, and many of her poems have theological imagery and ideas that I didn't expect.  She's also skilled at a variety of forms.  It's a book that demands a re-read, which I hope to do soon.

--I read most of the book in one sitting, and I returned to read the rest of it later in the afternoon.  It's always a very different experience to read an entire collection in one day, and I'm glad I did it yesterday.

--I had a late afternoon phone call after the Endorsement Panel yesterday.  I was invited to be the official poet, a poet laureate of sorts, of the Southeastern Synod's Synod Assembly.  What a cool possibility!

--My mom heard me say that I was invited to be poet laureate of the Synod, which would also be an interesting possibility.

--This morning I returned to my poem about Jesus working on the fixer-upper.  Here's what I wrote, a stanza which surprised me--I didn't know I was going to write it until the lines flowed out:

Jesus wipes down every surface,
scrubbing when necessary.
He paints the walls in a soothing
version of the color that first flooded
the world when God said,
“Let there be light.”

Wednesday Fragments: Zoom Sessions and Wrong Pronged Plugs

I feel a bit frazzled today.  Let me record some snapshots:

--I meet with my Candidacy Committee today for an Endorsement Panel.  I have completed the huge writing project, and the people involved know me on some level.  I'm not nervous, exactly, but I'm taking it seriously.  During my upcoming walk, I'll try to anticipate questions.

--The meeting is a Zoom session, but I've still given a lot of thought to my clothes and jewelry.

--Yesterday we did some work at the house.  My spouse moved the fridge away from the window to the spot where it will live, and it works.  Hurrah.  

--We discovered the electricians rewired the 220 plug for the stove as a 4 prong plug.  The stove that came with the house is 3 prong.  It's our fault, in a way.  We got a call asking us whether we wanted 3 or 4 prong plugs for 220, and we didn't think about the stove.

--At first I was annoyed with us for not being more forward looking.  But the stove is in rough shape, so I bounced to, "Well, I'll just buy myself a lovely new stove."  We had planned to do that, but not until next year when we remodeled the kitchen.

--I am starting to feel a bit worried about money.  I have no reason to feel worried.  But my fretfulness doesn't always correspond to reality.  

--I just did a quick search.  There are adapters, and they do seem safe.  Or are they?  Maybe I'll just go with my original plan.  And we could switch to gas.  

--Let me remember that the stove started smoking as we tested burners and the oven.  It was likely because of crud on it.  Let me remember that the oven door doesn't have a handle.

O.K., enough of fragments.  Let me go for a walk and gather my thoughts towards the work of the day:  teaching and the Candidacy Committee conversation.