Do I Miss Teaching?

Honestly? I don’t miss the grading all that much. But there were those moments grading papers when I could feel a light go on in a student’s mind so powerfully it lit the page and was still visible when I reached it in the pile. And it wasn’t the compliments that sustained me so much as the realization that I had given something important away, yet never lost a thing, because it kept returning to me. I taught philosophy for forty-three years. Who knows? Now I do what I do, thinking of myself as a theologian & poet in residence, and an open heart and open door for the ones entrusted to my care, and it’s important work, but always the writing, the open right hand moving down the page, the coloring lines of so much write space, so much editing, marginalia in margins, poems, stories, novels, sermons, lists, doodles, prayers. When I taught and when I write sermons or when I remember all of the students who passed my way, who I tried to help simply by taking their work seriously, by giving generous criticism– all of it passed through me unconsciously, and I never knew quite where it was going until it stopped, and even then. I write as I breathe. When the breath stops, the thought expired in me will have the last word. I hope it is love. And the names of my kids, and my beloved Resea, partner & friend. My parents. My sister and brother who preceded me to the Other Shore. Socrates claimed philosophy is but preparation for death. I feel prepared. But all I ever tried to do in my teaching is to model how I learned. I write to learn. And to know I’m still alive. I wrote a prose poem today. Tomorrow I may wake and it will all begin again. A fresh empty page. But aren’t we all?