March 15, 2003

Happy Birthday to Me Well,

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, today is the last birthday that I am thirty-something. This is my fortieth year. As usual, I look back and wonder where the years have gone. I’m on the home stretch of four decades and I have accomplished so little.

I spent 22 years in school, with only a brief gap, and ended up a law degree, the Mount Everest of student debt, and a career that I didn’t really enjoy for six and a half years. Now I’m hoping to go back to school so I can do the one thing I should have done in the first place: teach. Of course I want to teach religious education and history, but my degree is in law, so they may not let me. I’m hoping that the great need for RE teachers will be enough to convince them to take me. If I would have just finished by Master’s thesis, I could have gone into teaching then and there at the secondary level. I doubt that I could have stuck it out to get my Ph.D. and taught at the college or university level. Of course had that happened I can’t imagine that I would have ended up in the UK.

Since the teacher training course takes one full school year, if I get on it then I will be an example of how life begins at 40.

Mrs Holford keeps asking me what I want for my birthday. I honestly can’t think of anything. I thought about some web hosting, but just before I bought it, I remembered that my brother owns a web hosting company. So I pointed my domain at my brother’s nameservers and was back to square one. (I needed hosting because I’m losing my web space with my ISP when we move house in a couple of weeks.) I’ll probably end up ordering a book off of Amazon. If you can’t think of anything to get me, you can visit my Wish List. Just remember the prices are in pounds sterling. And if you warn me ahead of time, I can get you a gift certificate for £5 off your purchase. Just don’t get me Bed and Table Linen: Professional Skills Made Easy which Mrs. Holford accidentally put on my list instead of hers.

No, seriously, just send me a free e-card.

Every birthday especially brings to mind Psalm 90:12 (that’s 89:12 for the Orthodox here): “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Despite this being my favourite psalm and one upon which I did a multi-part sermon series, I clearly haven’t taken it to heart. I fritter away the minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. And I certainly haven’t gained much wisdom.

That’s what I’d really like for my birthday. Wisdom. Unfortunately, they don’t sell it at Amazon.

Posted by david at March 15, 2003 12:14 AM
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