I wrapped up my 20th class last night. And in every final class, I look at the slides I’ve prepared and I’m a little afraid that there’s not enough. I thought about why I felt this way and I got it this morning:

I’m afraid it’s not enough because I want the certainty that important lessons have stuck.

And I want that certainty because I don’t want them to make the same mistakes I’ve made.

There’s more sentimentality and romanticism there then there is reality. For even in class we talk about how life is more iterative than it is linear — or as one Jesuit put it, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” And even in my own life, the mistakes and wrong turns have taught me as much as the successes and achievements — and the lessons that have stuck are the ones I learned on my own… the experiences that I’ve absorbed.. the ones I have understood because I suffered through them.

Last night as they left, most came up to my table and shook my hand. Those final moments always make me feel like a parent sending their kids of to the real world. Will they find their way?  Will they forget?  Will they pick themselves up when inevitably they trip along the road they take?  There is no certainty. There is only hope.  Teaching, maybe much like parenting, is an investment activity and an exercise in hope. That is enough for me.