Reflections - Week One

This week was a bit overwhelming. Being back at school after a thirty year hiatus was strange and at the same time, rather neat.

Questions flowing through my mind included:

·      What would my fellow-students be like?

·      What would the faculty be like?

·      Would I fit in?

·      Would I be able to keep up with the workload?

My feelings included mild terror (I know, if it’s really terror, it actually can’t be mild!) and second-guessing myself and this decision to go back to school.

And yet, at the same time, I felt more certain than ever that I want to be a teacher. It’s a bit like the Irish statement about death, “It’s not the bein’ dead that I’m a fearin;, it’s the dying!” It’s not the teaching I fear, but the process of getting there!

I’ve been impressed with two things this week:

First, the expectation that being effective teachers will require the willingness and the ability to see things through different eyes – to think outside the box, as it were – along with the assumption that we who have proven that we can learn (we made it through an an under-grad degree, after all) are expected in this programme to actually think! and

Second, the willingness of faculty to have us evaluate their teaching choices in our classes, as it were to put their own necks on the chopping block! That reveals trust in us, as well as a willingness – an eagerness even, to learn from us and from the experience of teaching us.

Second Day of Classes

 Today was my second day of classes in the B.Ed. (After Degree) Program at King's. One very positive thing is that  we are treated as "pre-service teachers" which is quite different from being treated as "students". I was really a bit fearful that classes would be like what I experienced in my undergrad days - not the best memories I have. This is quite different.

For one thing, it's much harder. No mere regurgitation of things studied, instead we're required to think - to reflect and ponder - and not just at specified moments (like mid-terms and finals) but in every class! This is actually pretty good training for teaching! 

Since my High School ("Hail, Holyoke High School: Alma mater, first forever!) and undergrad were done in the US, I have to take some Canadian Studies. I chose a Political Science course, "Canadian Government and Politics". WOW! There's going to be debates and quick-witted reparte on the issues facing Canadians today! It's pretty exciting. I'm one of the first debaters. The issue is "Should Religious Beliefs Be Excluded from Consideration of Public Policy?"  I'll be arguing "Yes". Imagine, I'll be arguing "Yes"! (One of the first "rules" I learned in debating is that if you get the chance, take the opposite position from the one you actually believe. That way you already know the other side's position - perhaps even better than they do!).

I still not entirely sure how I am going to maintain some balance as a bi-vocational priest, but, by God's grace and hard work, I will. (smile)

Glory to God for all things!

Starting Anew - A Poem

This started as a reflection on standing alone today - quite contentedly -  amidst a crowd of young first-year students, but as with many poems, the direction it took was not exactly what the would-be poet had planned.  

Starting Anew

Alone - knowing myself,

Yet surrounded by others unknown;

At peace in the knowledge of what is right,

Yet anxious about steps taken;

Calm with steadiness in the depths,

Yet troubled on levels unknown.

How can such opposites hold together

without tearing apart the whole?

What is the glue which binds

such disparate truthes in stable tension?

It is my humanity

–a bundle of paradoxes parading as oneness.

It is my humanity

– conflicting compasses in a sea of chaos.

Being human, I hold such tensions 

And maintain such confusion –

Secure in insecurity and doubt,

Joyful in sorrow and sadness,

Peaceful in conflict and uncertainty,

At home in homelessness and exile,

A stranger even among friends and family

This, this bag of uncertainties and confusions –

Like grab-bags of treasures and relics in a shop –

This is to be fully alive. This is to be completely real.

This is true life

Unknowable, unpredictable, uncertain,

yet promise-filled.

This is true life

Knowing incomprehensibly that in the end

– and after –

it will make sense.

Today I returned to school after thirty years. This blog is intended to be a bit of a reflection of that new reality in my life. After 30 years in ordained ministry - I am presently the Parish Priest at Holy Protection Orthodox Church in Fort Saskatchewan - I am at the same time studying to become a High School Teacher at King's University College in Edmonton. It's a two year endeavour - two years in which I will be juggling Parish and University, family and fellow students, parishioners and cohort.

What does it mean to be a bi-vocational priest in the Orthodox Church?
What will it mean to be a bi-vocational teacher in a local school?
What does it mean to be an "old guy" among predominantly younger folk?

Along the way I hope to make some sense of life's uncertainties - at least the ones which I will be experiences, and God-willing, this will resonate....