| Sunny Side Up September 20, 2006 �2006, Kathleen Gibson Never, never, never stop learning September - the screen door between summer and fall. Millions of students know it as the portal of re-entry to the classroom. The little guy I met a few weeks ago seemed ecstatic to greet September. "Hi, how are YOU?" he bugled to anyone within hearing as he idled his bike near where I walked. A woman in a yellow tank top lifted a box from her car trunk as he rolled by. She called back. "Hi yourself! Hey, how's school this year?" "Hasn't started yet. Tomorrow!" He said it the way children tell you there's 'only ONE more sleep till Santa comes!' His teachers will love that boy, I thought. He's positively giddy to return to the classroom. Then he saw me. "Hi, how are YOU?" he repeated, cranking his head backward and pedaling forward at the same time. "Good, thanks!" I answered. He wobbled back and forth, responded to my "Enjoy your last day of summer," with a cheery, "Yeah!" and disappeared around the corner. I remember when I felt that way. New books, new clothes, new faces, new ideas. When nature began spinning summer's greens into golds and the mothers prescribed sweaters, I dreamed of school. September remains my favorite month. Decades ago, the Preacher and I made the decision to home educate our children. I was never smarter than during that long string of years spent learning alongside them at our kitchen table. Those weren't easy years. But in retrospect I see only sunshine spilling onto two blonde heads bent over their schoolwork, and I know I'd do it all over again. Now that the retreating tide of hazy summer days has uncovered September's classrooms, you'll find me in school again. Following a God-placed yearn to learn; this time studying in a virtual classroom, under the tutelage of online professors and mentors. It's a little frightening. The old gray cells, they 'ain't what they used to be'. I'm a prairie chicken, guaranteed, but no spring one - that half-century mark is close enough to smell the candles. "Don't get too tired, now," my mother said the other day, certain I have enough parchment certificates. But it's for love, not 'parchment' that I return to the classroom. The skill of writing improves with sharpening. I need that. The understanding of God and one's faith is also enhanced through the discipline of regular study. I need that too. So I've chosen programs in both writing and Biblical theology. "Go for it," said the Preacher, "it's time." Time for what? I wondered. But I know - time to keep reaching. It's tempting, once fifty arrives, to settle back among the good things and bright memories God has allowed and allow the brain cells to coast the rest of the way. But the people I know who make the deepest impact (and seem to last the longest!) never retire from life's many classrooms - formal or otherwise - and never stop applying what they've learned. God uses that. What are you learning these days? Respond Home |
 |