That old unfamiliar feeling

Yesterday I went to the Open House at UConn/Wby for the Osher Lifetime Learning Institute (OLLI). The place was packed and the joint was jumping. The director of the program said that this year the number of students at OLLI might surpass the number of regular students at the branch. I'm teaching a 4 session class in Oct. on the Gospel of Mary of Magdala. The told me the class was closed---fully enrolled and asked if I would allow 5 more. I did and then asked for 2 more spaces for two friends who had been too late.

During the day walking around, listening to a fascinating physics lecture, talking with people, explaining what we'd be doing in the class, I got that old 'unfamiliar' feeling that receded deep inside me decades ago. I got in touch with what was my goal and passion in my 20's--to teach. I was going to go to either the U. of Virginia and get a Ph.D. in American Literature or go to Iowa's writers' workshop after my BA. Either way I would have gone I would have ended up spending my life in college classrooms. That was what I wanted to do with all my heart...

But there were two problems: one was a war in SE Asia and my draft # was something like 14! and I had applied, just to get my two favorite professors off my back about it, for a Rockefeller Foundation grant for a Trial Year in Seminary. I kept telling the people from the Foundation that I didn't want to go to seminary and they keep smiling and saying, that makes you perfect! They annoyed me so much I accepted it when offered--one year at Harvard (I didn't even apply--Rockefeller $ opened many doors...) and then back to my game plan...back to teaching young minds for the rest of my life, trying to ignite them with the love of words.


The second day I was in Cambridge, I got drafted. The letter really begins, "Greetings". After a lot of time on the phone with my college chaplain and then the Bishop of WV, I was a 'postulant for holy orders' and my draft notice was rescinded. Those were the days when Episcopal bishops could boss draft boards around! If I had gone to UVA or Iowa I would have been in the Army or in Canada. So, I took it as a sign that I should give theology a whirl. And several years later I was visited by an Archangel and became ordained. The rest is what my life has been.

But yesterday the smell of chalk--actually I didn't see any chalk--white boards and markers and big screens around the room have done away with black boards--so, it was walking around that building, seeing those classrooms and those active, older minds longing to be ignited that made me nostalgic for the boy I was at 21. "Professor Bradley", I thought it would be, not "Father Bradley". I don't regret in any way the direction I went...but it was exciting and inspiring to rediscover that old unfamiliar feeling. "Gladly would I learn and gladly teach...."