Planting a Semester

With the first summer term starting Thursday, I’m busy doing my semester prep, which consists of about 25 things, some minor and some major, that need to be done every semester. Much of it must wait until very shortly before and even after classes start. Some are as simple as reserving rooms for various meetings during the semester and some are as complex as reconfiguring web pages that have a difficult user interface, but that aren’t available until shortly before the term starts. Much of it is busy drudgery that takes enough brain power that it isn’t easily automated or delegated.

I started thinking about how the beginnings and endings of terms are always my busiest and most stressful times, and there simply isn’t much that can be done about them. It is very cyclical, so I started thinking about other life cycles and realized that the academic term for a faculty member can best be compared to the growing season for a farmer.

Start of Term

For many, the Spring or Winter term starts tomorrow (Tuesday). Which it is called seems to depend mainly on if you use semesters or quarters and how far north or south you are.

With the new term come new students, new opportunities for ministry and to be conformed further to the image of Christ. Perhaps starting the term with prayer will be helpful.

Father,

We as your faculty servants praise You, Greatest Mystery, for revealing Yourself through the many fields of scholarship.

Thank You, Untaught Teacher for the privilege to share that revelation with others, including our students.

O Ever-Punctual Planner, we are in all manner of stages of preparation, from being clean ready to near panic, and ask Your Gracious Helping Hand to finish our preparations and to seek excellence in all we do.

Exalted Gift-Giver, may we be humble in the exercising of our great talents, coming as they do by Your good pleasure.

Patient Redeemer, mirror Yourself in us to wisely mentor our students and show us in them and them in us, so we may humbly recognize our own faults in each other and thus be sanctified further through Your Spirit’s ministrations.

Perfect Potter, continue to mold us for service, to be fit for Your kingdom, to judge rightly, with mercy and justice, to shine as a lifted lamp and preserve righteousness in our culture as goodly salt,

That in everything Your Name may find glory in our lives.

By the gracious, redemptive and holy Name of Your only Son,

Amen.

SDG