Good news

Yesterday my wife, who is a professor of mathematics at our college, received one of the coveted "Trustee Teaching Awards." A few years ago our Board of Trustees decided to really make the point that we care about teaching, so they established two big annual cash prizes for teaching excellence, one for junior faculty and one for senior faculty. Carol won the senior prize. The award was well-deserved, and I'm not the only one who thinks so -- the applause at the honors convocation when her name was read was loud and enthusiastic. I am tremendously proud of her.

I knew about this last week, since the administration had called me to make sure that Carol was present at the convocation. But, of course, I was sworn to secrecy.

So over the weekend I had many conversations with Carol about plans and arrangements that, I knew, would be much changed by the news. (The prize is a significant chunk of money.) It was an interesting experience. Did I have a burning desire to blurt it all out? Not really. It seems to me that I would have been more tempted if the news had been less. This news was, in effect, too good for me to want to spoil its proper announcement. (And Carol's look of sheer amazement when they announced the prize was worth it, believe me.)

Sometime over the weekend, the thought came to me, This is how God feels. Something fabulous is coming, something that will pay our debts and evaporate our anxieties and set us free. So we've been told, anyway. We call it Heaven, but we don't really know just what it is, and we mostly act like we didn't believe in it. God, maybe, is content to leave it at that for now. And who can blame Him for not wanting to spoil His surprise?