Posts Tagged: being an adjunct
“Overwhelmed”
We all feel overwhelmed at times. Even good things, things we enjoy and feel passionate about, can inundate us with fear and frustration. No one is exempt from being overwhelmed. For example, here is my journal entry for this morning:
Friday, July 26, 2019
So, why have I not been posting more blogs, you ask? Partly, because I have been getting more chances to teach. And while I love teaching biblical subjects, I am more than a little overwhelmed right now. (Can you be a little overwhelmed?)
Here is what I am facing right now. I had done a lot of work on a couple of courses for the fall semester, which is coming up in a hurry. A few days ago, I was asked to switch out those two courses for two others. I thought to myself, well, I need to be flexible. I’m an adjunct. Okay, I’ll do it. Then, I discovered that one class has sixty-one students in it, and the other has twenty-one. I’ve never taught a class bigger than about thirty. So, I need to choose textbooks and get the syllabi together for these two classes, and I have very little time in which to do it.
Additionally, I am currently teaching one undergraduate class, and preparing to teach two masters level classes in a little over a week. These two masters level courses are hybrid classes, which means that I will be meeting with students in person for a very intensive week in early August. One class goes from 8:00 to noon, and the other from 1:00 to 5:00, five days of that week.
So, I have too much to do and too little time to get it done. I need to work on both sides of the equation—the too much to do, and the too little time. I can do two fundamental things.
First, I need to keep doing things that energize me and keep me on the right path. Therefore, I need to continue to exercise and to work at recovery from this addiction. If I “free up more time” by means of refusing to work on bodily health and recovery wisdom, I am walking in neither wisdom nor freedom.
Second, I need to cut back radically on what I “need” to do. Do I really need to do this? That is a question I need to ask myself many times in the course of the day. And I need to follow up with another question: What do I really need to be doing right now?
Right now, a bird is singing outside my window right now, anticipating the dawn. It is a call to worship for Matins, the Morning Song Service for the worship of God. This song is also part of the healthy rhythms of my life. And so is this blog post.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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