August elegiac

Feeling the coming fall; looking to resurrection

Gentle reader,

Come August, my heart gets heavy. My grandiose plans for each summer have melted into modest realities. I feel the anxiety of the kids as school looms before them as I worry about checking off the back to school to-dos from sports physicals to school supplies.

I pretend my own classes aren’t starting soon.

My friend, Christina Bieber Lake, calls August the-month-that-must-not-be-named.

She also advises, though, that we “embrace the lace,” that is, the Queen Anne’s Lace that wends and weeds its way everywhere this time of year.

Definitely check out Christina’s wisdom for teachers, on how to embrace August and all the other seasons of the academic year, in her book The Flourishing Teacher: Vocational Renewal for a Sacred Profession. (Chapter 1 is about August, as Christina takes us through a school year. Christina also offers a self-directed retreat and masterclass here.)