Blessing of the Teachers

Yesterday, we had a blessing of the teachers.  I've always loved this idea.  The children of the church help--yesterday, they annointed the teachers' hands with oil (a sign of the cross).

When our pastor invited the children up to help, he said, "We try to involve the children in our ministries here wherever we can."

My spouse said, "They're some of the most effective ministers we have."

And as we watched the children annoint the hands of the teachers, I thought about how right my spouse is.

The children waited patiently--except for the few who couldn't contain their enthusiasm and tried to cut back in line to get a second chance at doing some annointing. I wondered about whether or not any of these children would grow up to be ministers, lay or ordained. Would they look back to the times that they got to participate in services and see those as important moments?

And then each teacher got a care package and off they went into their back-to-school lives.

Afterwards, people asked me why I didn't go up.  Alas, I'm not teaching much these days.  I certainly could, but my life as an administrator is fairly full.  I wish my life as an administrator felt important.

No, I spend much of my day corralling e-mails.  Sigh.

But enough about me.  On this day where many teachers return to school, either to teach or to get ready to teach, let's give a special prayer for them.  Teachers have gotten a lot of bad press lately, and let's be honest:  for most of them, they're not making much money, and they work under very stressful conditions.  Most of us wouldn't want their jobs, and yet, we're willing to admit that they're important jobs, even as we can't figure out how to make them better or increase teacher pay.  We need to pray for all those people in charge of our children's brains.