Dr. Susan Blassingame: Summer Devo Series

Dr. Susan Blassingame: Yes, we were sort of in the throes of something, and we were trying to think of ways to build community,
and this summer devotional came to mind, and I'm so glad to know that it's continuing.
I think that's great.
So it is the first of summer.
Don't you love it on the news when they say, Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of summer?
To me, summer begins the day after graduation, and it ends sometime in October, or November if you live in Texas.
So I'm going to talk about work, and I'll begin with Psalm 90, 17.
May the favor of the Lord rest on us and establish the work of our hands.
Now, I'm an English person.
I could wax on for an hour about the word established and how important it is there.
But time moves on, so I'm skipping that part.
One of my favorite songs of all time came from a Thinking Critically initiative about vocation.
Hold on.
And you can, I'm not going to sing it or say the whole song, but you can Google it.
It's Before You I Kneel, a worker's prayer.
And I Googled it last night and I did Before You I Kneel, the Gettys, G-E-T-T-Y-S.
And you can listen to it and you should because it's absolutely gorgeous.
But I'm going to read the last stanza.
"Before you we kneel, our Master and Maker, establish the work of our hands
and order our steps to seek first your kingdom in every small and great task.
May we live the gospel of your grace, serve your purpose in our fleeting days.
Then our lives will bring eternal praise and all glory to your great name
and all glory to your great name."
Wow, amazing.
Now, Randall insisted that I begin with a poem.
because you know him. He's into poetry. And so I'm going to read a poem that I began
most of my classes with when I taught English. It's called To Be of Use by Marge Piercy.
"The people I love the best jump into work headfirst without dallying in the shadows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves,
an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task,
who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters,
but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
botched it smears the hands crumbles to dust but the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies clean and evident greek amphoras for wine or oil
hopi vases that held corn are put in museums but you know they were made to be used
the pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real" okay I want to talk about
work and I'm going to talk about my dad he was born in September of 1924 and he lived to be 99
and six months his goal was 100 and he didn't quite make it but he had a great life he served
World War II stateside working on aircraft and training air crews and ground crews.
A fascinating job.
And then in 1951, he was working on the family farm and working at a gas station, fixing cars
and all sorts of stuff.
And Webb Army Air Base turned into Webb Air Force Base.
And he got a job as a civil servant working on aircrafts, but still holding on to some of those second jobs.
He was a hard worker.
But he also knew how to play.
And that is what I want to talk about today.
We took great family vacations.
He would come home from work and say, I took some days off from work.
Let's get in the car and go.
and he would pack a cooler with sandwich stuff because we were poor
and we would pull back out of the driveway and he would say,
which direction shall we go?
And somebody would say, let's go north or let's go south
and that's where we would head out.
We traveled all those trails around Texas.
When I was a sophomore, I had an assignment in biology to collect wildflowers.
And we drove all over the state of Texas at Spring Break with a cinder block and newspaper in the car, in the backseat of the car floorboard.
And we collected flowers from all over the state of Texas.
And I won.
Best flower collection.
We went to the Astrodome.
Some of you don't know the Astrodome, but it was our Disneyland.
And we would go for baseball games and football games about six times a year.
And we especially went to Colorado because that was his favorite place.
His own father, I think some of this was caused because his own father died of a massive heart attack working at the farm when he was in his 50s.
And my dad was afraid that he was going to die early also.
And so that was part of what he was doing, was trying to live as much as he could in the short time that he thought he was allotted.
I think he retired at 55.
I was in college, I know that
and he spent the next almost 40 years
traveling, exploring, making new friends
blazing mountain trails in Colorado
when he was 77
two guys in our campground asked him to help blaze a trail
from the back of our campground
to a national park trail three miles away.
And they started off that day, and they put him in the back.
To mark a trail, somebody goes forward and lays markers along the way,
and if they think they have a good path, they shout,
and then somebody else comes up and goes to the next point,
And the last person picks up all those markers.
So there are just a few markers and not a big trashy trail.
They started off, and Dad was in the back, and he kept passing them.
And one of the guys said, I think Robert should lead.
Apparently, we're going to go his pace.
They were trying to go slow because they thought he was too old.
But he was leading the way.
I spent eight summers with him in Colorado.
That was when I was a rich public school teacher.
When I became a college professor, I couldn't do that anymore.
Keith, you understand that, right?
Right.
I spent eight summers with him in Colorado, and my mom finally retired and joined us in year five.
He hiked the mountains in Colorado until he was in his 80s.
I think 82 was his last year.
I learned a lot from my dad, but one of his greatest lessons is that work is not all there is.
Life should be so much more.
My dad would say, your vocation is not just your job, it's your life.
Those of you who know me know I'm a big believer in snow days.
Who's the most important person here?
Randall?
I think today should be a snow day after this.
So there you go.
It feels like it.
Some days we just need a break from the routines of work.
When I was teaching high school and had reached my limit,
I would tell my students, go get your library books.
Today we read.
And tomorrow we're going to read until I'm calmer.
So that I don't kill anybody.
when I was
let's see, turn my page
when I taught college
and I distinctly remember that the first time I did this was in February
but February is really hard
in college because it's a long time until spring break
and I would tell my students
I think we all need a catch up day
go take care of life today
and look for an email from me sometime tomorrow
with some instructions
I remember
the first time I did it
as students were looking at me in disbelief and leaving
two students burst into tears
in their chairs because they were so stressed
they could not believe they were getting some time off.
Folks, that's a lesson that we all need to learn.
I would send them an email that said,
go to bed early for the next two days.
Wash your sheets.
I have two granddaughters at college,
so I know how important that is.
Clean the floor,
clean your floors, call your parents and a friend, sort through your assignments
for all of your classes, not just mine, and go talk
to your professors. I want to know the ones that you talk to.
And
they would have to send me an email with what they had done on those days.
And most of them began or ended with, I am so
grateful for that time.
And as I was thinking about this, I remembered a time when I accidentally deleted my inbox in my email.
And in my panic, I was punching keys and deleted my sent box, which I was trying to move into my inbox as a reminder, and it deleted too.
And then I called Carl Mahan, crying, and said, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do?
And he said, "you know, I think you're just rebooting, to use a computer term, and you're starting out at zero.
I say, enjoy it.
If one of those emails was really important, that person will get back in touch with you.
So don't panic."
And I told Karma, wow, Carl said don't panic.
So I'm not going to panic.
I slept like a baby that night.
And for the next week, I kept both boxes at zero.
I didn't last long, but I know I kept it a week.
He was right.
And I
didn't hear from many people
about those missing emails.
So, you know, if Randall's
not going to give you a snow day, I say go
delete your inbox.
In my mind, summer
is a very long snow day.
You have work to do,
that's true.
But you should also make time to catch up
on life,
to be with family, to enjoy the great outdoors, to get some good sleep.
We live in a crazy world.
I worked at LCU for many years, so I know how tired you are.
Rushing around with many items on our list, on our to-do list.
Well, I don't have items on my to-do list because I'm retired.
I don't even have a to-do list anymore.
Josh said, we start at 9, and I said, I think I can make that.
I don't have a to-do list, but you all do.
And I want to say with all my heart, slow down.
Take time.
Not make time, but take time.
I think if you're having to make time, sometimes that time doesn't get made.
So I'm saying take it.
Rest up,
It's summer.
Take some snow days, especially in July, and breathe, dear friends, because you need it.
Okay.