The beginning of week two

There is no rhythm to my schedule yet, and I find myself a bit anxious that I will be able to keep up with all there is to do. I bought an 11x17-inch white board at Long’s Pharmacy, a mega-drug store that has everything including wine and food. I have dutifully logged in my assignments, the days that they are due and have been checking them off since creating the list on Friday afternoon.

For as much as the week begins on Monday, in terms of class assignments and class schedules, time is always resetting itself on whatever day it is. This being Tuesday, the reading and reflection paper about Howard Thurman’s book, “Deep River,” on the power and the theology of the Negro Spirituals will be discussed and handed in today. And in that moment, the reading and reflection paper assignment about “The Luminous Darkness” will be looming.

I suppose that is the way life goes. When we reach one moment, we are transported into the next. We move from one breath to another, carrying with us our perception of our experience.

“There is a bottomless resourcefulness in man that ultimately enables him to transform the spear of frustration into a shaft of light,” Howard Thurman writes.

For today, being prepared for a Tuesday will have to be "the shaft of light” that transcends the “spear of frustration” of all that I have to prepare for Thursday.

In this seminary existence, it’s called “experiential theology,” otherwise known as handling stress or keeping ahead of the curve.