Thursday, September 11, 2014

Clean Syllabi and Rainbow Signs

After a string of tiring days at work, I finally got some good news.  A colleague has been tasked with distributing comments from the team that's double-checking our syallabi in advance of our upcoming accreditation visit.  He stopped by my office and said, "Your syllabi are pretty clean."

I've spent the summer submitting documents of all sorts.  I've thought they were clean, only to find typos.  I've thought they were clean, only to find that we needed more complete information.  I've done multiple forms in multiple ways.

As of this morning, I'm done with all the accreditation tasks except for hole punching some documents and putting them into binders.  I could show up to work to find out that I need to redo everything yet again, but in this moment, I shall assume that everything is in order.

Last night I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work.  I took carrots to school for lunch yesterday--that's how bare our fridge had become.  Luckily, a colleague invited me to join her in eating the extras from a lunch meeting that she had.

In the grocery store, I felt that sense of peace that can come from restocking the larder.  And on my way home, I saw a beautiful rainbow:



I thought we might get some much-needed rain--look at the clouds at the bottom of the picture.  They looked so threatening.

I thought of all the stories of rainbows from my childhood churches.  We were taught that the rainbow should remind us that we will be safe from destruction.



Now of course, I am older, and much as I want to believe we are safe, I know of the damage that can be done with a hijacked plane, a tiny virus, a cell's mutation, a rise in temperature of just a degree or two. 

But still, every time I see a rainbow, I take it as a sign of hope.  So, it was great to drive home last night to see such a huge rainbow, stretched across a red and lavender sky.

And on this day of grim anniversaries, it's good to remember the central message from the church of my childhood and from many other faiths:   death does not have the final word.

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