Marking the Perfect Man

Midterms have come and gone, the evenings are getting cooler, and the once colorful trees are gradually morphing into winter skeletons--it's impossible to deny that November has come and the end of the semester is just around the corner. But in addition to all the glories of fall, it seems that the academic life casts a shadow on the season. In addition to thoughts of time spent with loved ones, yummy food, and fun winter weather, there is always the lurking thought-- "AHHH! The semester is going to be over and I have so much work to do!"

I'm TAing an undergraduate course this semester, and one of my tasks is grading their homework assignments and exams. Just this morning, I was working on grading their midterms, and was having such a hard time with it. They are all such good kids and put a solid effort into the class, so it was difficult to give them less than perfect grades, even when warranted. I can remember the various anxieties grades caused-- the worries, the self-criticism, the useless worry, and I wanted to keep my students from that as much as possible. Not to mention, in the back of my mind I was thinking about some projects that I have been working on, and feeling like I needed to get going on them-- grading myself harshly if you will.

As I was driving later in the afternoon, praying about the various situations trying to find a sense of peace and two of the gentlest angel messages came from me. The first was a familiar analogy of healing to a math problem. . .When we go to school, in each course we learn particular skills and then are given the opportunity to demonstrate what we've learned. The math problems aren't personal-- they have nothing to do with how good of an individual we are, they are opportunities to demonstrate intelligence. But certainly, we expect to be corrected along the way-- if we've gotten 2+2=5, we want someone to point that mistake up to us so we can correct it. I realized that these school assignments are no less of an impersonal opportunity to demonstrate all the spiritual truths we have learned. Final exams might be an opportunity to demonstrate that God is infinite, unlimited by time or limited intelligence. A special presentation might be an opportunity to not only demonstrate that Mind is our intelligence and creativity. A qualifying exam/paper might be an opportunity might be an opportunity to demonstrate that God's ideas are already complete, orderly, and original. A grade simply holds us to the standard of perfection-- and we certainly wouldn't want to (and couldn't!) dilute perfection.

The second was the Golden Text from the Bible Lesson this week:

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."
-Psalms 37:37

God only gives one grade, one mark, and it only brings about peace--Perfection!