Last Class

After twenty-eight years, I taught my last class today. There's still a week left officially, but I'll be giving a test, returning it, and then heading off to the semi-annual diocesan clergy conference. So today was it. I ended the way I started, teaching ecology from an outline of the text, weaving in stories as illustration, imitating bird calls, using what students call the "voices" -- accents I've heard where I've lived over the years, definitely not Midwestern. (Someone suggested I use the voices in preaching, but I doubt I'll do that.) R suggested that I wear the Dr. Seuss tie she gave me, so I did. It helped set the tone: playful, not somber. No "last lecture" today. Yet it still feels a bit odd to be done.

Later this afternoon there will be the last of three retirement parties, this one in the building where I've taught most of the time, with current and former students stopping by. I'm planning to give away some of the plants in my office, as a way of extending the joy I've had being a botanist all of these years.

It has truly been a blessing to have wandered in the woods, to have taught about the woods, and to get paid for it! I give thanks to God for that blessing, and for all of the students who have taken my classes. May they in turn be a blessing for all whom they encounter throughout their lives.