“Why?” our Dean asked, perplexed.
“Uh, ah, I think I need to rest,” I replied. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t stressed, I enjoy teaching, but it seemed like the correct and only thing to say. One needs no profound reason to rest, I thought. These days, my life is not governed by strategic and forward planning. I often answer “Why” questions with “Because!”
“But you will definitely teach next term, won’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, one subject in June,” I replied, relieved he asked no more question.
So I looked forward to being idle in 2009. For a change.
I began the year by covering all the books I got for Christmas with plastic. It was my undoing.
When I started reading my new Chronological Bible, from JC, I went all the way to January 27; when I opened “Spiritual Disciplines Devotional” from my friend Yna, I read up to week four; when I scanned the first page of Mitch Album’s “One More Day” from JR, I couldn’t put it down and finished it through the night; when I flipped through James McBride’s “The Color of Water,” which I won in a raffle at our family reunion, I read till page 200 and will probably finish it today—that is, if I can pry my hands off Eugene Peterson’s “Living the Message.”
I don’t believe in one-book-at-a-time. Not in reading, and not in writing. Not since I left the workplace in the year 2000.
And oh, this is not to count the crossword puzzles I solve while eating green mangoes with bagoong (anchovies, Filipino style), and the long phone chats with my friend Lucy and cousin Minna, one trip to the Spa, occasional swing to the coffee shop with my boys, and of course my writing (though it may seem like I have been goofing off, this is still my priority).
And it is only the 15th day of January!
Then at six PM today, the eighth season of American Idol is scheduled to premiere.
These are the best of times—the best of idle and idol times!
More than ever, I ponder and wonder about grace. Why it is even given to someone so unstructured, so unconstrained, so undeserving?
No comments:
Post a Comment