I celebrated the first official day of summer vacation yesterday by . . . going to work.  There was an almost-last-minute request to sit in on some interviews that I couldn’t/shouldn’t turn down.  In a way, interviews are always interesting to me.  I did walk away from yesterday’s time thinking that everyone should have to re-interview for their own job every few years, if only to try and speak more clearly and honestly than the constant forward motion of the regular year allows.

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I’m not sure how I would describe this school year.  Not bad, for sure.  There were a few unanticipated things that shaped the year, that were really threads more than specific moments.  I decided this morning to keep a simple “work journal” in Google Docs, because I do want to learn from my experiences.  I definitely enjoy the classroom most.  When that goes poorly, nothing goes well.

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These last few weeks I’ve been slogging through The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos.  Somehow I came across a copy of it a few years ago but never got to it.  I thought it might be a fitting read for the beginning of “ordinary time.”  And while I still hold to that, it’s definitely slower than I anticipated.  Lots of long speeches from various figures in the villages the lead character serves as priest.

This morning I came across something that points to why I acquired/kept the book for so long.  It’s mentioned in passing in Ephraim Radner’s A Time to Keep, which I was thinking about before diving deeper into his most recent book, Mortal Goods.  The name-drop happens in the chapter titled “The Arc of Life,” which I also revisited this week in preparation for a meeting with the English department because of how Radner’s brings in the “all the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It as a way of thinking about, well, the “arc of life.”

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In preparation for that meeting with the English department (my own department had our final meeting earlier in the week), I ended up tracking down work from the faith and literature class I taught a couple off times about a decade ago.  It was a brief-but-fun revisit that reminded me of some of the deep threads in my own life with it comes to literature and faith.  Some of the books and passages I taught in the class are still amongst my favorites.  Part of me would love to teach the class again; part of me knows that now is not the time for that.

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I’m grateful for this now-closed school year.  The trip to England and Scotland back in October feels like a million years ago.  It’s a trip that I love that I will likely never run again.  And I had a good (in my opinion) semester with my seniors.  I think I can trace some of the work of God throughout these last few months, as much in “clearing the table” for me as in “setting the table” for whatever is next.

I’ve already set my “out for the summer” email response, a reminder to myself (if no one else) that there is a time and place for everything and that all time is not work time.  But I will think about work some, will likely even visit my classroom a few times to make sure some things are in place for the end of July, which feels like it comes earlier every year.