For those who have been with us from the beginning, you might remember how this podcast started with just Matt and Dave, and how we didn’t tell each other the question we were going to bring in, and just stumbled our way through thinking on our feet about how we might answer that question. We are recapturing a bit of that feeling in this episode! We sat down at our microphones at our normally-scheduled recording hour…and looked at each other expectantly, waiting for someone to remind us what our topic was for this week’s episode. We quickly realized that we never agreed on a topic! But we decided to go forward, and record anyway. We hope that this conversation gives you a further sense of who we really are behind our podcast personas! Matt gave us a little direction by sharing an Advent piece by Frederick Buechner to begin, and we launched into a ranging conversation about what gives us hope right now. We also talk about recommendation letters, the amazing students we get to teach, some recent adventures in pedagogy, things we are grateful for, and other playful shenanigans. Maybe this episode will be a good reminder to take some time to check in and connect with your colleagues! Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/ In this episode, Dave mentions Andy Crouch’s book, The Life We’re Looking For, which is one of his favorites lately. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+life+we%27re+looking+for&hvadid=593689271884