Crowd vs Class

About 40 human resources people mostly women taking the long way to dinner--a walk down Commonwealth Ave with commentary by me on the statues--John Glover, William Lloyd Garrison, the figures in the Women's Memorial, Phylis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone. The revolution, abolition, women's suffrage, a nod to the Marathon and  then "let's eat." An hour approximately, the night had fall and the wind was chilly when we turned onto Stuart St. 


I experienced the group as a long string of clumps of people who then were around me listening, then as a room of tables of conversation (our table of 7 hit themes of generational characteristics, national cuisines, revolution), then, the next day, as reception with remarks of appreciation for what we'd done. I would have liked to looked at their faces more and listen to their stories, as they had looked at mine and listened to my teacherly trumpet. But the moment was over. We were then in pro forma space and soon, me back to class, they to meetings, lunch and home. 

My classes at Bunker Hill, in abeyance alas this spring, are sixteen weeks, two sessions a week, and two hours and a half hours a session. It's my job to provide the new, interesting and progressively more advanced material we'll work on but the students make it fun. Their shyness and boldness, their stories--often intimate and touching, their person situations gradually revealed, their discovery of each other, their days of weariness and days of exuberance all make each session feel as rich as a tapestry, or better, as the brushwork of a Monet--on the small scale a amazingly complex scumble of distinct colors and on the large, an atmospheric evocation of a special place at a particular time. 

I discover more of myself in that context particularly my clownish and lyrical side. Our end to term parties as are often hilarious celebrations of who we, the class, are and a farewell to who we were.

There's a time for crowds and a time for classes. They're energizing and exhausting and they come to an end. I find myself always wanting more and having had enough. Is that way for all encounters? As I with these Others, so God-in-love in encounter with us?