{"id":936,"date":"2007-10-08T17:08:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-08T17:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=936"},"modified":"2007-10-08T17:08:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-08T17:08:00","slug":"the-dream-and-the-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=936","title":{"rendered":"The Dream and the Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the dream last night I was at some kind of Protestant Christian youth camp, headed by the stereotypical big, extroverted, 30-something youth minister.<\/p>\n

A teenaged girl was supposed to be baptized, but the minister had to leave suddenly, so he asked me to baptize her. His request presented two problems:<\/p>\n

1. I did not know how this denomination performed the ceremony. 2. Would a baptism by Pagan me be valid anyway?<\/p>\n

I shoved issue #2 aside while searching for the book\u2014a sort of combination prayer book and textbook\u2014that would tell me how to perform it. I remember looking up “baptism” in the index: there were multiple page references.<\/p>\n

As dreams do, this one trailed off with no clear resolution. The girl was not feeling well and wanted to postpone the baptism\u2014or something.<\/p>\n

The deam revealed its meaning, I think, in one detail: my English department colleague J. was in the dream. He was one of the camp counselors. He did not play a part in the dream-plot, but I saw him waiting in line at the camp dining hall.<\/p>\n

The dream is not about religion but about my teaching career, which will end (at least for now) when my resignation takes effect at the end of spring semester.<\/p>\n

J. is one of the younger professors. He and I have talked about his taking over some of my minor administrative chores and also my office, which is nicer than his (windows!) and more convenient to the classrooms that we both use. In that sense, perhaps, he is “waiting in line.”<\/p>\n

J. is a strong classroom teacher. A former Marine<\/a>, he sometimes impersonates his drill instructors in the first-year composition classroom, but in a light-hearted way that the students appreciate. (I don’t know that he does it in his critical-theory classes, but maybe I should eavesdrop more.)<\/p>\n

As for me, I need to look up whether “burnout” is one word or two. The zest is gone, although I am still looking forward to the spring nature-writing class. Right now, I have a folder full of essays from my creative-nonfiction class to critique. Those students all have some writing talent and their pieces are interesting to read , but I have to flog myself into actually writing the comments on them that they expect. On some level, I am not a “believer” anymore.<\/p>\n

Ironically, I am probably looser and more at ease in class now than I ever was, knowing that I have the freedom of the short-timer. Maybe I learned something about how to teach writing in the last fifteen years. But now my time for research and writing is worth more to me than it was fifteen years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the dream last night I was at some kind of Protestant Christian youth camp, headed by the stereotypical big, extroverted, 30-something youth minister. A teenaged girl was supposed to be baptized, but the minister had to leave suddenly, so he asked me to baptize her. His request presented two problems: 1. I did not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[54,12],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-teaching","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-f6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13637,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13637","url_meta":{"origin":936,"position":0},"title":"New Issue of The Pomegranate","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Links to articles from the newest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, (vol. 24, no. 2). These articles are paywalled \u2014\u00a0but you know a librarian, don't you? If you don't, you should. \"The Religious Biographies of Polish Traditional Wiccans: Leaving the Catholic Church, Conversion to Wicca,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":222,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=222","url_meta":{"origin":936,"position":1},"title":"Greek Pagans rile church Followers\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Greek Pagans rile church Followers of revived Greek Pagan (or Ethnic) religion are indeed able to gain more publicity, thanks to this summer's Olympic Games in Greece. On a green meadow at the foot of Mt Olympus, famous in mythical literature as the home of the Zeus and the Hellenic\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1120,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1120","url_meta":{"origin":936,"position":2},"title":"Review: Youth without Youth","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My movie-fu was strong the other night. I watched the opening sequence of Francis Ford Coppola's Youth without Youth (2007), all dissolving clocks and such, and said to M., \"It's the 'terror of history.' Where is Mircea Eliade when we need him?\"And it turned out to be made from one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10622,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10622","url_meta":{"origin":936,"position":3},"title":"Quick Review: “The Pagan King”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"My \"Pagan-ish\" blog tag seems mostly to go to Latvian materials, and here is another one, The Pagan King. Set in the 13th century, when the Baltic peoples were to be the last Europeans Christianized at sword's point, it is the story of a young man named king of Semigallia,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Latvia\"","block_context":{"text":"Latvia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=latvia"},"img":{"alt_text":"Medieval Pagan Latvians","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/medieval-latvians.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7119,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7119","url_meta":{"origin":936,"position":4},"title":"Links: Exorcists, Vampires, Shamans, and the New Gothic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"So many links, so little time to comment. Pick one, two, or three of these to read. Mix and match. Fill your plate. Come back for more. \u2022 Sexy vampires threaten Catholic youth, thus encouraging \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 \"dabbling.\" \u2022 Witchy craft: I am building these. \u2022 Another\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.independent.co.uk\/incoming\/article10174021.ece\/alternates\/w460\/v2-21-True-Blood.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1300,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1300","url_meta":{"origin":936,"position":5},"title":"Are Epiphany Dreams Found only in the Past?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Bryn Mawr Classical Review's book-review feed recently served up a review of William V. Harris's Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity The reviewer writes, Some combination of [cultural expectations, generic demands, and the imperatives of performance and publication.], Harris argues ...\u00a0 accounts for the relative frequency in antiquity of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dreams\"","block_context":{"text":"dreams","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dreams"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0674032977","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}