Ready or not

Ready or not, here comes the Fall. I’m not. Ready, that is.

On my plate today, among many other things, is to finish grading final papers for my summer class. When I looked at enrollment for my Fall class, I found to my surprise that there are 22 people on the list. That’s more than I’ve ever had for a course I created about eight years ago. While encouraging, that translates to me right now as “Oh great, this’ll be a lot more work.” Such is my mood.

Another upcoming event is my first ever test for COVID-19. I wonder how that will turn out. Russia supposedly has a vaccine. Anyone else feel like that is not really ready for prime time, or at least, not fully trustworthy? It’ll probably be named Putinicillin. In the meantime, I’m going a little stir crazy having to isolate for two weeks before an outpatient medical procedure, and I’m ready for this to be done with.

Then there is all of the material ordering that is supposed to be happening already at my library. Is everything ready? No, in spite of months of extra time to prepare, and I’m quite concerned that material requested for Fall classes in the disciplines I support will not be available in time. As we shift to buying a lot of e-books for example to support hybrid or online courses, these need to be available right now for instructors to include links to them in our institution’s learning management system ahead of the Fall semester.

I’m also not ready to rejoin any kind of in-person church life. I don’t care if groups of 50 or so are now allowed; I think it is foolhardy and I have zero patience for those who trumpet on and on about their rights being trampled. I can’t even…

What am I ready for, then? The same things as always: a settled, peaceful trust in the Lord; a renewed sense of purpose and source of strength; the love of family and friends; and finding joy in everyday things while looking forward to a heavenly future.