Month: September 2013

Posted on

Spiritual Detours

You’d be surprised, but I spend an awful lot of time thinking about religion, about church, about spirituality, and about how each of these concepts can exist independently of one another. People often ask me why I don’t go to church, but the answer isn’t a simple one, even though the act of not going is simple. And I know what they’re thinking, that I must be a lost soul, that I’m one of those backsliders who grew up in the church but has now turned his back on it. They would be wrong on both accounts.

I’m not lost. In fact, for the first time in my life I think I finally have solid footing where it comes to God and my connection with him. It has been a long time coming, though, and I have gone through many wrong turns on the journey.

FIRST TURN:

In college I worked at the Temple University library circulation desk, and I had a wide variety of students and non-students come in and ask me questions or tell me things they thought I needed to know. They were looking for the religion section (BS – no joke), or they were trying to find their computer password to log in (they really needed the reference desk), or they wanted to let someone know that a guy had built a book fort in the stacks. One time that stands out, however, was when two guys in gray suits with print ties came up to the desk to ask about my eternal soul. They gave me a pamphlet and invited me to go to their church on the following Sunday. At the time I had so many questions about my eternal soul that I think I became an easy target, and they could see it. Continue reading “Spiritual Detours”

Posted on

No Fair

no-fair-480Fair (adj): free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice.

Wow. I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually looked up that word, but just looking at the definition I can see why one of the most repeated phrases I hear no matter where I am is, “That’s not fair!” Because, obviously, nothing is fair in life. There is always bias. There will always be dishonest people and dishonest practices. And injustice is the one thing that has woven the fabric of history together into the varied quilt it has become. So, why then do we still feel like everything has to be fair for us in our lives? Why don’t we just accept the fact that “fair” is a misnomer and always will be? Wouldn’t we be better off that way?

The simple answer is no. The more complex answer also ends with no, and for a variety of reasons.

Continue reading “No Fair”

Posted on

I Did What?: My Sordid Job History, Volume 5

A cruise sounds nice.

You know how it is when you don’t expect something but it falls into your lap anyway, and you realize later that it was the exact thing you needed at the perfect time you needed it? Well, in the summer of 1994 I had one of those moments. I had just graduated from high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I had just gotten back from an extended trip to Alabama where I had experienced real freedom for the first time. I wanted to see more of the world, to enjoy the kinds of freedoms that Alabama had only given me a hint of, and to be involved in experiences that stretched my mind. And a travel agency was the perfect place for all of those dreams to converge, in that summer of ’94.

My high school sponsored a program that allowed select students to complete paid internships at local businesses. Because we were an inner city school there were many such programs made available to us. Somehow I was one of the students selected, and they told me I had been given the Rosenbluth Travel Agency as my work destination. Continue reading “I Did What?: My Sordid Job History, Volume 5”