epiphany

When I was an Episcopalian, from 13 to 16 years old, I had this great pastor who invited members of a youth group out to his house in Upper Montclair and talked about theology and chess. I am a bad chess player. I learned when I was in 5^th grade and have never gotten any better. I'm not a great theologian either, but I remember still this one thing I learned from those discussions - epiphany.

Now according to the dictionary, once you've gotten past the feast of the Magi, epiphany is "the revelatory manifestation of a divine being". But my pastor called it "the outward sign of an inward grace". I think that epiphany applies to many things, not just grace and I've been having a number of them this week. First, the continued devolution that is this university. The Academic Senate voted not to do anything in response to the Chancellor's mandates. This is not so good as the Chancellor is not a forgiving sort of guy and is likely to do something about this refusal. To make matters worse, according to the Provost, the school is going to have to pay back something like one and a half million dollars through failing to meet enrollment targets. To make things even worser, 49% of the students who come here leave without a degree. And, the worstest part, the ones who stay here are harassed by instructors. This last is from my buddy the ombudswoman, who further went on to say that the many complaints that come to her are caused by the same five or six faculty members, time and time again.

Great.

But the epiphany came when I was walking across campus to get some lunch. It must be hunger awareness week or something right now. On the middle of the lawn at the center of campus was a cardboard and duct tape shantytown. I didn't know it was a shantytown until I saw the sign. It didn't look all that much like anything. So anyhow, as far as I understand it, students who want to bring attention to thee important issues live in these shantytowns for the week, but these were empty by sundown, with only a couple of posters and the boxes were gone by midday the next day. That is this place. Full of borrowed good intentions, but with never the heart or head to follow through.

The other epiphany was about golf, but that will have to wait.