UTON WE HYCGAN HWÆR WE HAM AGEN: AN UNCERTAIN CHRISTIAN IN THE CLASSROOM

This essay offers a personal meditation on my own struggle with faith and the ways in which that struggle sometimes erupted unbidden as I presented to my students what I imagined to be straightforward analyses of textual material incorporating religious content. The classroom discussion therefore required a balancing act on my part, mediation, in a variety of ways, not least of which was a balance between my own (dis)belief and my students’. Such mediation ultimately can create an ephemeral safe haven in the relics of the page, in spite of conflicting perceptions of faith. While the moment of religious epiphany doesn’t—can’t—last, the possibility of safe harbor does, and I tried to find for both my students and me a place to call home, at least momentarily, a haven in the literature.