The Inconvenient

Heather Holleman,
English,
Penn State University

[March 11, 2012]–

I receive a desperate email from one of my best students. He’s applying to this great new program, but the deadline’s been changed to tomorrow. He has no choice but to beg his professors to write last minute recommendations.

It’s a ridiculous inconvenience. It’s exam week here. I’m grading papers, posting grades, and barely keeping my head above the water. Not only is the recommendation due now, but I have to stop everything, drive across town to my office to pick up the appropriate letterhead, write the narrative, and then arrange to meet the student to drop off the forms.

Precious?

What makes this one student’s life so precious, so important, that I would bother to do what I do not have time for?

I bundle up in my coat and scarf, pull on my gloves and boots, and brave the ice. As I drive, it’s as if God has a message for me about the beauty of the ridiculously inconvenient. God, after all, takes on the inconvenience of flesh, and if I think about it, Christmas and Easter are both actually celebrations of the most radical inconvenience.

A student needing a recommendation seems a small thing, really.

I know, I know. I’ve also memorized the quote: Your lack of planning doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part.

But what if it did? What if I embraced being ridiculously inconvenienced for once in my life and made your particular need my current emergency?

Unusual Satisfaction

I’m smiling as I race into the English department. It is because the student is precious—profoundly so—that I engage in this frenetic activity. And why wouldn’t I go to extraordinary lengths to help him move forward in the direction of his dreams? What makes my time more valuable than his?

Years ago I was that flustered student, trying to meet deadlines, knocking sheepishly on my professors’ doors. How many folks did I inconvenience on my journey? How many emergencies did I bring into the laps of folks I needed to help me?

The life of faith in the academy means I learn to embrace inconvenience. The inconvenient things often usher in the magnificent, the life-changing, and the divine. I felt myself transforming into the type of woman I want to be as I drove back home. I did a ridiculously inconvenient thing for someone, and I knew it was a sacrifice worth making.

What have you done that God used to transform you into the person you want to be?

© 2012 Heather Holleman
© istockphoto

http://www.myministryminute.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Holleman.jpg

Presenting the Reason for the Hope Within

Ray Townsend, M.D.,
Renal Division, School of Medicine,
University of Pennsylvania,

[Feb 12, 2012] –

I am privileged to lead a weekly Bible study with undergraduates. This began with a few students I met at church – a “God-thing” since I am a medical professor and they are mostly in non-medical majors. Akin to a pick-up basketball game, a core of them attend regularly while others attend more sporadically. It’s always a blast!

It got very interesting when a student with a Jewish background joined our discussion one Friday. He seemed quite informed about the New Testament scriptures. He invited me to present at the Secular Penn Friday Tea — a meeting for atheists, agnostics, etc. The ground rules were that the presenter has 20 minutes and the attendees have open minds. Period!

A Very Different Audience

The Friday following Easter, I presented reasons why the resurrection of Christ is critically important to Christians. The room was full of both Christian and non-Christian students. I presented the case as made by Paul in First Corinthians of the primary importance of the resurrection.

Reviewing some of the Biblical evidence of the witnesses to the resurrection, I mentioned that if it is not true we deserve more pity than scorn. What followed over the next three hours was an “open-mic” discussion covering just about any objection one could make to the claims of Christianity, including the exclusivity claims (John 14:6), election (Romans 8), and intolerance of sin.

Two things caught my attention:

-the willingness of secular students to engage in and discuss a range of issues: autonomy and free will, the authority of scripture, the source of morality, truth, and a host of other issues – nothing seemed off the table.
-the depth of their well-thought-through positions.

A Challenge to Better Prepare

This revealed my limited ability to give an account of Christianity in the face of such thoughtful opposition (I Peter 3:15). I am grateful for the sharpening effect of this interaction. I hope that my presenting as a scientist and a professor who believes deeply in spiritual things caused students to consider the reasonableness of Christianity.

At the end of the evening one of the students thanked me for participating. He confided that he had drifted away from his Christian roots, but that the give and take of the past 3+ hours had served to “reconnect” him.

God be praised for the powerful “foolishness” of the gospel (1 Cor 1:25) — particularly in an academic setting. I think it was C. S. Lewis who said the point of preaching is not so much to instruct us in new things, but to remind us and reinforce for us those things we know already.

Just curious — what has helped prepare you to present the reason for the hope within you?

S.D.G.

© 2012 Ray Townsend
© istockphoto

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