This Ministry

I can’t remember the last time I taught any genre of literature,

            Or any complex cellular configuration,

            Or any significant historical movements.

Although probably, it was yesterday.

I can’t remember much of yesterday’s lesson plans at all.

            They seem to have fallen, swept like handicapped aspirations

            Into the creases of the trodden floorboards.

What I remember from yesterday is the parent-teacher conference with the 16-year-old beauty suffering from severe depression.

What I remember from yesterday is the young man who needs another extension on his paper because his concussion is causing riddling anxiety.

What I remember from yesterday is the mother who told me in no fewer than six emails how I have done irreparable damage to her son for the “C” he received on his last paper.

This morning, I’m supposed to rise to teach The Iliad, I think.  Or maybe polynomials, or the maybe the French Revolution, or maybe the conjugation of something or other.

But yesterday, I fell more than three times.  I don’t know if I have the strength to rise again for

            this Ministry.

I just want to stay here – fallen –

This Ministry, it lacerates me some days.

But perhaps, perhaps, I can rise just a little.

            (I suppose I must, really.)

Perhaps, perhaps, I could at least rise to my knees.

            (Not sure I can manage more than that.)

Perhaps, I can rise to my knees, sit back on my feet, and clasp my hands together in my lap.

 Morning sun rises.

“Good Mornings” effuse from cauldrons of simmering wakefulness.

Somehow laughter combusts spontaneously in the hallways.

All these souls, they rise; they all pull themselves up to resume their daily ministry.

But I may just stay down here today, on my knees.

Because although The Iliad has much to teach,

And I so much, so much more to learn,

Perhaps, perhaps this humble position is the most fitting model of

this Ministry.