This reflection was written by Jesse Zink, for this week’s Wingèd Ox, a weekly news digest distributed to the college community. You will find reflections from previous weeks here.

On my first day of kindergarten—the name given to the first year of primary education where I grew up—I happened to end up on the front page of the local newspaper. Two friends and me were snapped crossing the street to get to school. One of the three of us is laughing with excitement, another is striding purposely forward with a spring in her step, and the third is nervously chewing the sleeve of his raincoat and looking at the ground. (I’ll let you look at the picture to figure out which is the five-year-old me.)

Every year around this time, I get out that picture and reflect on the wide range of emotions that can accompany the start of a new school year. Nervousness. Excitement. Joy. Terror. Purposefulness. Uncertainty. Some combination of these or many others. Since that picture was taken, I’ve been through many more first days of school, as a student, a teacher, and an administrator. At one point or another I’ve felt all these emotions and more. Now I see that same range of emotions lived through my children and their friends.

I share this story because I know that among all of us there is a range of emotions as we prepare for the start of another school year. That is as it should be. As we launch into this new year, I encourage you to be aware of how you are feeling at this time—not because I want you to suppress those feelings but because how we are feeling at any given moment is a key determinant of how we make our way in the world.

That’s true of Christian ministry as well. So much of what shapes the pastoral encounter is driven by the emotions that we and others bring to it. You can have a wonderful theology of death and dying but if walking into a hospital room where someone is about to die makes you fearful, then the theology isn’t going to do you much good. Jesus calls us to love God with all our mind, yes, but also all our heart, soul, and strength—in other words, all of ourselves, including our emotions. In an academic environment such as this one, the mind can quickly take precedence. At our best, our programs here seek to be attentive to all aspects of following Jesus. It can begin by asking the question: how am I feeling in this moment? And then: how can Jesus be present with me in this feeling to serve God in this world?

Yours in raincoat-chewing energy,

Jesse