Hello, BU Students –
You did it! We collectively did it.
We have reached the end of a challenging fall semester that has been fraught with starts and stops and many other adaptations. Regardless of your program, location or delivery, I admire your tenacity to stay with it throughout all the interruptions and changes. This has definitely been a semester like no other.
Some of you will be graduating tomorrow, and we look forward to celebrating with you and your families on your grand achievement. For everyone else, we look forward to seeing you either in Fall Term 3 or in the spring. For those with in-class instruction or labs, we plan on resuming instruction in January just as we were doing this semester. For traditional students, please remember there are protocols for when you return to campus. Check your email from Alan Smith on November 20, 2020. And, remember that everyone will be tested again whether you arrive back on campus in Bluefield or Blacksburg.
If you take nothing else away from this message, know that we are proud of you! You persevered to make it through the semester. I hope you are able to find time in the coming weeks to pause and reflect on what you have accomplished. May it be the inspiration you need to take on the spring semester with vigor and determination. Also, as you reflect, may you also create space to ponder the approaching celebration of Jesus’ arrival, the Immanuel, and how blessed we are to have God with us.
Just as shepherds many years ago had their normal, ordinary lives interrupted that evening when they received the good news of Jesus’ arrival into our world, may you recognize this sacred moment in your own life as well. As expressed beautifully by Frederick Buechner, “The sacred moments, the moments of a miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only a gardener, a stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all our being and imagination, what we may see us Jesus himself.”
Don’t miss the miracle of Christmas!
Partnering with you in faithful service to one another and our neighbor,
