Two roads, diverged.

At the kitchen table a few weekends ago my mother proudly stated that I had chosen to study religion in college because of a great teacher I had in high school. He was a Methodist Reverend, and he had, unknowingly at the time, shaped the rest of my life. I corrected her with a story that, I’m sure, no one outside of my students know – I find myself telling it to them frequently and they always make the same, slightly confused, slightly “I can totally relate” face.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a priest. A Protestant one, naturally – and I was going to forsake my  staunch (though somewhat infrequent) Catholic upbringing. I was going to raise a fist against the hypocrisy of the Pontificate in a way no one had done since Luther! I was, of course, seventeen at the time and had a knack for taking all my angst out against the Catholic schooling of my earlier life. I wasn’t, however, drawn to the Church in a vocational, calling from God in the middle of the night kind of way. In middle school, I had taken a test, along with all the other Catholic school seventh graders in the state of New Jersey. It was a “what is the history Vatican city,” “how do you spell Reconciliation” kind of test. And I scored better than everyone else in the state. I remember thinking to myself, “well fuck it, I’m pretty good at this shit.” And that was how I came to religious studies.

My mother sat there, mouth agape, and told me I was misremembering my childhood. She does that occasionally and I can’t blame her for it. Obviously, her story is much more Romantic and Me as the new Luther does definitely rub my father the wrong way. So there’s that.

I stuck with it though, in North Carolina, in Italy, and back in New Jersey and graduated with a totally useless degree and a lot of knowledge of the prolific writings of St. Augustine and the history of the seven deadly sins. I always enjoyed my studies though, and that’s the point. An alum of the school I work for came in yesterday to shoot the shit while I was hanging out in my fav colleague’s office – of course, a history teacher. He was saying that his business courses were bullshit and he was bored. Colleague and I both told him to scrap that shit and focus on something he loves. He said he’d like to be a poli sci major, but couldn’t justify it financially – what can you do what that degree anyway, he posited? Instead of jumping up on my usual soapbox and exclaiming “Who cares! You’re a long time dead and you can’t your degrees with you!” I thought of my own academic life as a metaphor for my regular life.

I might be whats wrong with America. I have never, in my life, thought of the financial implications of following my heart. I pay the bills, ok? I’m not over here freeloading off the government’s money (for the most part). But when it comes to not going to school, to not seeing the world, to not basking in the beauty of what ever the current love of my life is, somethings take a back seat (like groceries). So, alum, you are a long time dead. You should do what you love, because while I’m never going to make a million dollars, and if this Obama federal loan forgiveness doesn’t go through, my phd will be basically worthless, and I probably won’t meet a legit dude, because not only am I over qualified for my job but also for all the men I know, I am happy and this year I’m teaching a religion elective. So, you never know.