“This is not what I signed up for.”
You have every right and reason to express that sentiment. Few of us could ever have imagined life or work becoming like this: mask wearing, temperature taking, social distancing, days consumed with Zoom.
Who would have thought teaching would be like this? Or working in Student Experience, Enrollment, or Facilities? It’s all so different and so difficult.
The whole world seems to have moved from its plan A to some sort of plan B. We are all working with some alternate fallback plan, some backup plan, some contingency plan – in a world where planning with any certainty is not even possible.
I believe that since neither you nor I can be reduced to what we DO, and since we are all meant for more, our plan B must take into account that we are more than our title, our tribe, our shortcoming, our failure, or our academic degree.
The first step of our best plan B is to not DO anything. Instead, consider the plan BE found in Psalm 46: “BE STILL and know who is God and who is not.” In other words, the position of God has already been occupied – and I checked with Human Resources there are no more applications being taken!
To BE STILL means to go within yourself. To not base your life on some false plan A standard that others impose on you, especially one that is currently impossible.
Forgiveness doesn’t come easy in our world. Forgiving oneself comes with even more difficulty. It is easy in this environment to end up stuck in despair.
Søren Kierkegaard, the 16th-century Danish philosopher, wrote a complex book called Sickness Unto Death. In it he describes a despair of one’s self that happens when the self ends up “cheated of itself by seeing the multitude of people around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs. Such people forget themselves, in a divine sense forget their own names, dare not believe in themselves, find being themselves too risky, find it much easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number along with the crowd.”
Our students are not mere numbers, and neither should we be. Our worth as persons is based on much more than our net worth. We are meant for more than that!
We are created beings with souls, persons deserving of respect and dignity. I believe we will realize this more clearly when we can BE STILL.
To BE STILL is to let God be exalted, rather than exalting the external expectations of others.
When high-achievers like all of you face a crisis of plan A, the instinct is to compile a to-do list with tasks, duties, assignments, and responsibilities. We put our shoulders to the grindstone and we commit to plowing our way out of this with a whirlwind of activity. I suggest that rather than making a to-do list, our best plan BE is to make a to-BE list.
Take a deep breath, BE STILL, and list the things that you are.
I am Monique’s husband. I am the father of six Black children. I am the grandfather of eleven perfect grandchildren. I am brother to three siblings. I am friend to a rainbow of people. I am a multiracial man. I am my widowed mother’s firstborn son. I am an immigrant and an advocate for immigrants. I am flawed, but I am a forgiven Christ-follower. I am a child of God.
I am meant for more, and so are you.
Amen.
My daily prayer during the time of Covid-19:
Lord God you have called your servants to ventures
of which we cannot see the ending,
on paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing exactly where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us,
and your love supporting us,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This devotional was delivered to faculty, staff and students at the August 18, 2020 Community Meeting.