Sunday Snippets

We've reached the point of the term when I feel both scattered and focused.  I have final projects/papers that I need to be working on; I have a plan, but I can't decide which project/paper to be working on.  I have online classes that I'm teaching, so I've got plenty of grading to do, but I can't dive in.  Three weeks from tomorrow I need to be moved out of seminary housing; I could be packing, but I do still have three weeks, so it's not yet time to pack all the dishes, all the books, all my clothes/bedding/towels.

Let me record a few random thoughts before getting back to the work of the end of the term.

--Yesterday was Earth Day, and a Facebook friend posted this picture:  

--"Here to save the planet."  This morning, a first line for a poem came to me:  The planet doesn’t need your salvation.  I've written a few more lines, and I'll see if more comes.

--Although there were plenty of Earth Day events around DC yesterday, I limited myself to taking a walk around the neighborhood.  I knew that storms were on the way, so I didn't want to get too far away from shelter.

--I felt the ominous approach of the storms, even before there were clouds in the sky.  Would I have that feeling if I hadn't read the weather reports?

--It was a relief to watch the storms roll in, knowing that I was relatively safe.  I made this Facebook post (and later updated it):  

"The crack of thunder that makes me disconnect the computer from the power cord, the rain that I hope will tamp down the pollen--it looks like the cold front is arriving! I am safe, not on a ground floor (no fear of flooding!), on a campus on a DC hill top (no fear of car flooding!), in my seminary apartment which was built the old-fashioned way, out of concrete block.

Update: The storm has settled into gentle rain; all is well here."

--On Friday, before I went to my sister's, I went out for ice cream with two seminary friends.  I love this picture:

--I made this Facebook post to go with the photo:  "Some days we do theology a bit differently in seminary. And some days, we eat ice cream. And some days, it all looks like the inbreaking community of God, and I want church to look like this."

--I will miss the people I've met here.  But I remind myself that many of them are graduating.  I'd be missing them if I stayed here.

--In some ways, I think that the emotional space of missing--missing houses, missing humans, missing land, missing the past--is one of the central explanations of my life.