Two Praises

On Sunday, Pastor Dave gave a sermon on "How to Worship Instead of Worry." He used 2 Chronicles 20 as his text, in which King Jehoshapat is facing an attack by three armies. He knows he's outnumbered and outmanned, and he can't see any way through, so he just prays like a son of a gun, then hands it all over to Jehova, trusting in His strength. Heck—he puts a choir out to lead his armies. And, of course, God comes through and hands out a whomping to the enemy armies, who fall to fighting among themselves so that when the army of Israel arrives, all they find are dead bodies. It's kind of like Sam finding all the dead orcs at Cirith Ungol in The Two Towers—only, you know, it actually happened and was all biblical and stuff.

So on the way to work yesterday, I realized I was deeply obsessing over my scheduled meeting with the dean. Those of you who've read here or talked to me about work for any length of time know that the dean and I aren't on great terms. She always seems to be looking for points to criticize and catch me on. We had a lot of trouble with my evaluations before I got tenure last year, having to do them twice due to contractual and proceedural issues.

Then I found out I was being evaluated again this semester. Tenured faculty are only supposed to be evaluated once every three years, so to have it follow on the heels to two other sememsters of evaluation seemed excessive. I asked about it and was told that the timing of the evaluation during those three years was at her discretion, and that she was choosing to do it again now. I gritted my teeth and got set to do it all over again.

As I was saying, I was really dreading having to meet with her—she's generally all smiles and politeness, but somehow our meetings always end with me being guilty of something and accusatory memos getting sent off to the president of the college. But I was reminded that going over the possibilities and trying to formulate responses to a conversation I hadn't actually had yet was pretty pointless. So I decided to try Pastor Dave's advice out: I handed it all over to God and said, "It's Your battle, not mine. I can't fix this—I trust in You."

Fast forward a few hours. Just before my meeting, an email comes through from the dean. I'm thinking that maybe she has to reschedule and I'll get a short reprieve, and for that much I'm grateful. Instead, it's a message saying that there was some "miscommunication" between the campus and human resources, and that I won't be evaluated this semester at all. There was also a terse little "reminder" about working on those areas I get low (though still entirely acceptable) scores on from students, but a great weight was lifted from me. Of course God fixed it more thoroughly than I could have hoped for. I wish I'd shut up and get out of the way more often.

Man—this is already long, but I don't want to leave out the second and, to me, even better news. After almost a year of putting it off, I finally sent an audio sample to Pat Fraley, the instructor from back at Voicetrax who was so encouraging and with whom I was working last year on getting an audio book deal. At the time he asked for the sample, I was feeling pretty down, and all kinds of excuses—the holidays, family stuff, Voicetrax shutting down and the depression that followed, my desktop computer's fan roaring like a leafblower every time it's turned on, and the disappointment that my first demos hadn't gone so well—kept me from sending him one. And then it got to be so long since he had asked that I started feeling ashamed to even send it off. I'd think about recording the sample every few days, then worry about what would go wrong and put it from my mind.

But finally, on Sunday night, I recorded an excerpt from Peter Beagle's The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances, from a story titled "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros," and sent it off on Monday with a short note about my grievous faults and pleas for understanding and aid. Pat wrote a very nice note back and was excited about the sample, and now I'm making a "mini-demo" for him in the hopes that that elusive audio book deal might once again be within reach. Your prayers in this matter are happily accepted.