Blessing the Educational Forces

Today my church will be blessing backpacks, blessing school children, and blessing all of us who work in some capacity for a school or an educational setting.  It's interesting to me to realize that most of us who are still in the workforce in my church are working in either an educational setting or a medical setting.

Most of the women in the church who have school age children are working as public school teachers.  One father has just undergone the training to work in the public schools after working in a municipal arena.  I think that fact tells us something about both our church and our workplaces.  Most workplaces aren't very friendly to the needs of families.  But at least if a parent is working for the public schools, the holidays and days off will be the same--that's no small deal, if the alternative is working in a job where one only gets 2 weeks of leave.

On the other hand, I got into college teaching by accident.  I was working my way through grad school with a teaching assistantship--and I LOVED my first class that I taught.  They were enthusiastic and hard working and happy to be in class, and I assumed that every college class would be that way.  Happily, often, they have been.  And the work feels important.

Similarly, I got into full-time administration by accident.  I'd done some part-time oversight of adjuncts, in addition to teaching.  When a position came open in 2007, I was the one who applied who had the most experience.  And I've found that I have some administration skills that many people just don't have:  I can work on multiple projects at once, I'm efficient, and I'm also creative when it comes to solving problems in new ways.

I will not be at church this morning, however.  My sister and nephew are in town, and we don't go to church when they're visiting.  I wish I could get a long distance blessing.  But in some ways, there's no substitute for the laying on of physical hands, the anointing with oil.

I know that my church will be praying for us all--and that will be enough.  And I, in turn, will pray for everyone who returns to schools this week, and those of us who never left our posts.