s a new school year starts on college and university campuses, I found myself still meditating on the end of the last one.
The flags of the nations snapped in the May breeze, graduates in gowns congregated like so many happy penguins, cameras and smiles flashed brilliantly. And just like that, another graduation was a pleasant memory.
In the residence hall it was just as the ending of every school year has been, with 500-plus women packing, cleaning, moving. I couldn’t help but think of the feeding of the 5,000 as the volume of items being moved out of the rooms at the end of spring vastly outweighed the volume of items moved in at the beginning of fall. Every time a resident went shopping, or home, or on holiday, or received a gift, or purchased a new textbook or course outline, more and still more was squirreled away into those rooms. The chore of packing it all to leave takes more boxes, time, and effort than anyone seems to have imagined. And like those autumn squirrels, more and more hoarded stuff seems to reappear at the back of every drawer and shelf as we all go a bit nuts.
With graduation families to accommodate; express courses beginning Monday; renovation demolition slated for Monday a.m. at 8:00; every student on first and second floors moving to the basement or third floor to create needed space for conventions; and dozens of kids staying on for just a few more days till their choir, or orchestra, or mission trip, or tour group pulls out, the end of every school year is hectic, to put it mildly.
Traditionally, the test week morning sun rises on students who’ve been up half the night reviewing (or attacking for the first time) textbook and notes. Empty vending machines attest to the prevailing state of nonnutrition. Students look forward to their last exam in the manner of a mantra I suspect is familiar on every campus: “If I can just hold on till Wednesday at 3 . . .” But, sadly, that target hour signals only the end of the exams, not the end of necessary exit tasks. Mind and body seem to confer, and students go about the tasks of packing and cleaning with somnambulant lethargy.
Exhausted students stare dully at dust-encrusted windows and window blinds, gasp in horror at the thought of vacuuming under furniture, rev up their resolve to scrub showers (did you know that floor is actually white?), and other tasks not tackled all year. We remind them to knock off a chore here and there well before test week pressures bear down, and to begin taking/sending belongings home at spring break, but few heed the wisdom of the warning: it always feels like there will be more time. A campus may be the only place in the known world where people know for eight months in advance that they will assuredly be moving, but pack and clean nothing till that very day.
As I look to the end of my course, I don’t know the exact day and hour. And that’s probably a good thing. But I do know with certainty that it is coming, and that I want to be ready to leave. Yes, it’s true that it is Jesus who will make me ready. But I can study faithfully all along the way so that I’m not depending on “cramming” for my final exam. I can tackle tough challenges now instead of putting them off till later. I can take care with my sleep and nutrition so that I have the most clarity of thought and energy of purpose possible. I can “travel light.” I can recall that time passes more quickly than I’d like. I can be mindful that the end is in sight.
And I can intentionally live each and every day because I believe it.
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Valerie N. Phillips is the associate director of the women’s residence hall at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, where she has ministered to collegiate women for more than 25 years.