Yes. It’s true. I went to consult with a member of the clergy for the first time since the years of my parochial school education, long before a former assistant pastor of mine called me a “neo-barbarian yahoo” who happened to be going through a “heathen phase.”
But that’s ok. I have long since abandoned my antipathy to organized religion. Having settled into a pantheist philosophy which I judge to most closely align with Hinduism (probably the most tolerant religion in the world), my spiritual journey, though never ending, is much more sanguine that it had been in the past.
So it is with that frame of mind that I entered the office of the pastor of my wife’s church. I told him that, first, it was my intention not to return to the engineering industry, at least not in the same kind of role I had. I also told him that I was in need of 3 things. First, since moving to Nebraska, I had been working essentially 3 jobs, I have had little opportunity to assemble a local community to support me. I would like one. Second, my family was very happy with the childcare services they were providing and we would like find a way to continue that, though with my career transition, it would not be possible to pay more than a small fraction of what we had been paying for tuition and thirdly, I would like a place to experiment with some of the educational ideas that I had been playing around with in my head for years.
After stating what I wanted, I offered several ways to put my considerable talents to use in serving his congregation. We then set to having a very pleasant 45 minute conversation about how I might be able to help him and his Church. We agreed to meet next week with some more folks and see what we can do to form a win-win arrangement.
It is interesting how people, who don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on certain belief systems can still work to reach out and find ways to make things work. It’s a philosophy that has served me well, among a great many friends in Alpha Phi Omega, the workplace, school and in life.
Who knows what will come from this conversation. But conversations like these are how people change their lives. I intend to have more of them.
