Yesterday was a long day, but I knew it would be. I also knew that I have Good Friday off from both teaching and part-time preaching, so it wasn't as hard as it would be if I had to be getting ready to drive to Spartanburg right now.
My Nonfiction Writing class is spending our last few days listening to music chosen by the class and analyzing it and perhaps writing the last essay as a review of the music or an exploration of the process. Yesterday was Paul Simon's Graceland, which we listened to straight through with a break for treats that I brought.
I wanted to do some sort of them to the treats, so I made sugar cookies, some in the shape of hearts (much of the album revolves around love) and 4 female-ish shapes (think gingerbread girl with a skirt). On the female shapes, I put sprinkles on the feet for the song "Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes."
I thought about the idea of Graceland, the home of Elvis, and decided to make peanut butter cookies and bring in bananas, because Elvis' favorite snack was peanut butter and banana sandwiches. The grocery store had the greenest bananas I've seen in awhile, so I got the ripest ones, which would still be too green for people who prefer their bananas ripe. My students didn't mind.
I had forgotten how wonderful it is to sit and listen to a work of music straight through. And what a powerful work Graceland is. I've been listening to it since it first came out in 1986, and I've memorized almost every song. At times, I had to sit and focus on not crying at the beauty of it.
It was wonderful to listen to the music with my students who were so attentive and so appreciative. I'm feeling phenomenally lucky this term; all of my classes have been mostly wonderful. In most semesters, there's a class that is not, with one or more students who are openly combative or dismissive or resistant.
I had a similarly good American Lit class, even though all of our energy is waning. I told them that I had to let them go a bit early because I had to be in Bristol, Tennessee to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran for Maundy Thursday service at 7 p.m. Several students said, "You preach too?" I was happy to be able to quote Walt Whitman to them: "I contain multitudes."
Then I drove home, typed in the revisions to my sermon, printed it (you can read it here), and we were off to Bristol. It was a good service (more in this blog post), and while the drive home across the darkening mountains felt long, it was uneventful--unlike the Ash Wednesday drive home which included a fire on the mountain and blowing snow at the higher elevations.
Here, too, I feel fortunate. I get to do preaching work I love with a great congregation--and I get paid!
Today will be a quieter Good Friday. I don't need to be in Bristol, since Good Friday is the one day out of the year where there can be no consecration of the bread--fancy theology talk for "I'm not needed today." They will have a Good Friday service and a Saturday evening vigil service, and I'll be there on Easter Sunday. Later in the day on Sunday, my spouse's brother and wife arrive.
I will do some grocery shopping today, some writing, some grading--all the typical Friday things. I was able to get a room for my in-laws at Lutheridge, so I don't have quite as much prep work to do, but I still need to think about food. And I have a final paper and presentation for my Monday seminary class, so there's that, too.
I'm in the part of the week-end where the time still feels expansive. May it continue to be so.
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