I get to teach again on Wednesday!  Last Friday I taught the first and second graders at an elementary school downtown about hunger and homelessness.  Today, I was asked to do the same for the second graders at another elementary school this week!

I get to teach again!  SIGH.  I really and truly miss teaching. I even miss working with my ex-writing student-now-writing-prodigy-college-student. 

Pastor turned in his first paper, and I asked if I could read it. I asked because I really am hungry for all things doctrine and all things Living Word.  I asked because I miss being academic about things.  I asked because I know that he is a very talented writer with regard to sermons and (some) emails and devotionals and that lovely bit on prayer and such.  I wondered how he would be academically.  It is all I can do to refrain from sitting him down and telling him how he can make his next paper stronger, how he can leverage his talent in the craft and his fine mind into a truly great paper.  I sort of hinted today, beat around the bush about it, a half-hearted offer.  But I know he is not interested in my teaching him, not one who is schooled beyond my small studies through his calling and his vocation, not one who can wield a mightier pen.  DOUBLE SIGH.

Speaking of studies, I was greatly saddened to learn that the elders have decided to cease printing the devotional insert to the bulletin.  I want to rush in and say that I will print them myself.  For they have been a great help to me; I still have every one from each service I have attended and a few from some bulletins that were sent to me.

On one side is a review of the propers and sermon for the week.  In each bit, Pastor includes salient points upon which to reflect.  He also includes the hymns.   With this tool, we can re-read the passages from the Living Word and mediate on them.  Since both the written version and the audio file for the sermon are online, we can get fed throughout the week!

On the other side is a guide for daily meditation and prayer for the week ahead based on the lectionary and in preparation for the next divine service.  It is chock full of goodness:  memory verse, readings for the week, questions for reflection and preparation, a hymn, a bit from the catechism, the collect (prayer), and a prayer guide.  What more could you want?  Ah, but is that the key word:  want?

I believe the part that saddened me about this just might be the same that has always made me feel the outlier in churches:  studying the bible outside church, Sunday School, and bible study.  All too often, really almost all the time, I was the only one who actually read the book or bible and answered the questions before the bible study instead of just filling in the answers as people called out their thoughts and ideas.  All too often I was the only one who read ahead for Sunday School.  All to often I was the freak, the kook, the weird one.

Now Lutherans do have the lectionary, an amazing tool to know what scriptures will be taught each Sunday no matter where you are...as long as you know if they are using a one-year or three-year lectionary!  And, as mentioned many a time here, there is now the great resource of the Treasury of Daily Prayer, with prayers, the small catechism, daily readings from the bible, the entire Psalter, and various liturgies. [Yes, I am a fan!]  But I do find it more passive than active.  Pastor's guides are active, with questions to consider and reflect upon as we read.  They challenge me to delve into the readings, to consider them, mediate on them, connect them to each other, to what I know, to the life which I live by His grace and mercy.

But you have to want the active rather than the passive.  In my experience, most people don't, which is something that puzzles me.

Apparently, very few of us at church bemoaned the decision.  Very few of us use this gift of teaching Pastor bestows each week.  For me, it is one worth far more than the paper and toner used to print it. 

But, then again, not only am I very hungry, I also happen to believe quite strongly that there is still a place for the printed word in this world.

Maybe, though, I should admit that perhaps some of my passion over this comes from that which I am losing.  Over and over again, Pastor asks me questions I should be able to answer.  He ask them in my lessonings.  He asks them in bible study.  Sometimes, I know the answer and do not speak because I am fearful of being wrong, yet again, on something so basic, so simple.  Other times I do not know that answer but know that I should know.  I hate confusion.  I hate it!  I hate what this disease is doing to my brain, what I see on the inside looking out, what no one seems to notice, what frightens me more than I can say.

His guides are an anchor for me, for his teaching from the Living Word and for what happened that day, that week.  They are fixed and solid, a certitude in a sea of confusion, forgotten memories, and foggy moments.  Oh, how I will miss them!