Humdinger of an Autumn

Way back in August, a friend and I discussed the upcoming autumn.  My friend said, "It sounds like you've put a lot more on your plate without taking anything off."  I agreed, and I said that it should be doable, as long as nothing went wrong.

Back then, when I thought of the things that might go wrong, I thought about illness or a death in the family.  I thought about the ways that events might keep me from getting to campus for the online intensive, like illness or car trouble.  I thought that I might get hopelessly behind in my grading and never catch up--truthfully, I have been less worried about this possibility, since I've been teaching for 35 years, and that's never happened.

I did not think about a hurricane making it this far inland and doing so much damage over the mountains of North Carolina.  I did not think that I wouldn't be able to get to the retreat I agreed to help lead, and I did not think that the synod event would be cancelled.  I did not think that my spouse would hurt his back and leg helping with hurricane clean up and need so much help to get through the day, as he did last week.  I did not anticipate that my seminary would have more demand for housing for the onground intensive than they had space. 

So far, though, we have managed to pivot and punt and keep everything going. I am grateful for that.  More than that, our various struggles have revealed strengths.  Our community came together to help each other after the storm--both my neighborhood and the larger western North Carolina community.  My seminary professors were supportive as were my employers, in terms of post-storm internet access difficulties.  My spouse had very good sessions with various parts of the medical community on Friday.  I had to miss a day at Spartanburg Methodist College, which wasn't a problem--how refreshing to work for a school where faculty are treated like professionals, not like troublesome children who need to be punished, and how sad to think about how rare it is to be treated like a professional.

As we shift to Thanksgiving, let me remember all that makes me grateful.  And let me remember to be thankful for how much there is that makes me grateful.