November: the penultimate month of the year. It sits as a sort of liminal space between the start of Spring (in Australia) and the end of the year festivities.
For the teachers like myself, exams are mostly done (reports yet to be written). Lesson content easing off (time to find the educational games).
We’re so close to being done, but not quite there yet.
In some ways November seems like a nothing much month, but as I’ve reflected, there are lots of milestones and events along the way. Not only are they along the way, but they’re very important.
White Ribbon Day: Every year on the 25th of November we reflect on the ways in which women and girls experience violence and strive towards cancelling it out.
Movember: A month dedicated to supporting men’s health, both mental and physical, which includes International Men’s Day on the 19th of November.
Speaking of men, November also contains one of my brother’s birthdays and the other’s wedding anniversary. They may wish to challenge my label of November as a liminal space :).
But for me, it does seem that way.
It also seems fatiguing, but perhaps that’s partly the humidity on the increase.
It’s been a long and busy year and when we’re busy and in liminal spaces – sometimes called the wilderness – it’s hard to see what God is saying. But he is always saying something.
I like to take time every December to reflect on the year: what I’ve learnt, how I’ve grown and changed, or how I’ve perhaps not grown and changed when I probably really should have.
Sometimes I find it hard to reflect. I’m too tired to think. Other times, like recently, when I am definitely far too tired to think, I find myself reflecting earlier than usual.
I do wonder whether this means I’m trying to push on ahead and get to the end of the year when we’re not quite there yet.
As I reflect, I ironically hear God saying, “Keep in step with the Spirit”. Quite obviously I am not, which is why he’s saying it.
I’d prefer to be done, but he’s saying not yet.
It felt good to tick off the list the professional conference presentation yesterday. It was a presentation on a topic in which I’m not an expert – philosophy – and yet I was prompted by God to do it.
He had a reason for it, even if I still don’t have any idea why.
That’s another thing I’m reflecting on currently: I don’t need to have an answer or a why, I just need to trust. That’s why it’s called faith.
‘Do what he’s asking you, even if you don’t know why. Keep in step with the Spirit for now. That’s all you need to do.’
Easy to type up. Not so easy to do.
As part of my teaching of philosophy this year, my students composed a sustained composition after a lengthy research project. One of my students wrote a creative piece and used Brechtian technique to make a political comment.
Brechtian technique you ask? Well, arguably it’s a few things, but one element is breaking the fourth wall.
I’m about to break the fourth wall on that line I wrote above – “Easy to type up. Not so easy to do.”
I sat there looking at it for a good while, trying to work out how I was going to land the post before I unwittingly said aloud “I don’t know where I’m going next.”
Then I laughed, because isn’t that the point?
As Socrates said: “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
As a Christian I’ve often heard people imply that we should stay away from the teaching of philosophy and ethics but I’m not sure that’s correct. That puts us in the same camp as those who refuse to put the philosophy of the Middle Ages in their textbooks because they say theology and philosophy are not the same thing.
Puts us in the same camp but standing on opposite sides, I guess. Hopefully in future we can come a little closer together, because that’s how you engage in meaningful dialogue.
If philosophy means ‘the love of wisdom’ (which it does) then I sure hope theology and philosophy have similarities in several respects.
To think otherwise seems a polarising dichotomy that sniffs of cancel culture. We don’t want to cancel culture. We want to engage with it. We just believe that the ultimate wisdom comes from God and fearing Him.
He knows it all from eternity to eternity, or as the Greeks would say: He’s the Alpha and the Omega.
That’s why we can trust him for the next step.
‘Do what he’s asking you, even if you don’t know why. Keep in step with the Spirit for now. That’s all you need to do.’
As I said, it’s been a long and tiring year. I’m glad that the list of big ticket items is slowly shrinking. The next thing is an essay. “Epistle” is all I’ve got in my head right now. I should really read that New Testament subject online as my next step.
As I do, I’ll keep reflecting that even if God takes us through a fog, he’s got our back and will bring us out safely on the other side. Rousseau said humanity is in chains. Christ says he’s set us free. “Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Even if it at times it doesn’t seem logical or rational.
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.“
Keep marching on: step, by step, by step.
Yours still tying her shoelaces up,
Alison
