Rooke Chapel, Sunday May 5, 2019
It’s been many years since my last final.
And many years before that,
that I finished,
and promptly abandoned,
my pre-med requirements.
Which means I was finished,
with Chemistry labs,
and calculus courses.
and the exams that come with them.
Long ago.
And yet still,
to this day,
almost every finals season,
and exclusively within finals season,
like clockwork,
In the middle of some night,
I’m awoken by that stress dream
in which I show up to a class I’ve never attended,
for an exam I’m bound to fail.
And it’s always Chemistry or Math.
It is a strange and stressful time,
and I can empathize with your struggles.
And am confident you will survive.
In addition to the mundane challenges of this season –
like getting the work done,
time management, memorization,
finding a few moments to sleep,
looking for jobs or internships –
I remember occasionally being overcome,
my a much more substantive challenge.
A deep-seated question,
which made it hard, sometimes, to study and write –
Does any of this actually matter? Continue reading “A Word of Encouragement”