Standing at the Walls

I spent fifteen years toying with the notion that I would some day become a college professor. I never took a truly applied course. Oh I took the ‘applied’ courses offered by non-applied disciplines, but never a business course or something of that ilk. I didn’t even take any physical education or silly (most aren’t but you could fulfill the requirement with one) fine arts courses.

I knew pretty much from day one that academia wasn’t a growth industry, certainly not in any of the topics I ever wanted to study. I enjoyed the mental gymnastics of a really good classroom discussion. Unfortunately, I had more of those in grades 7-12 than I did in undergrad and even for stretches of grad school. I believed I wanted to live the life of the mind. I had romantic notions of the college experience. I never it found in the large state universities of Ohio (or some of the other places I’ve since been).

I never quite fit. I still don’t. I was too middle class in early grade school. I wasn’t from the right family for the rest of grade school. I wasn’t from the right neighborhood in high school. I wasn’t a local and I was trying to have a liberal arts experience at a large, urban, public university, so I didn’t fit. I was too interested in religion and rather different in my politics in grad school. I just didn’t quite fit. I didn’t fit because I didn’t much care to. I did care and would have liked to have more relationships left from that time, but I didn’t care to enough.

Columbus, Ohio

And so I’ve circled the walls of academia, never quite willing to wear the uniform and march in the right step to make my way in. Right now, I’m standing in one of the outlying villages. We have cleaner air and better sanitation, though the risk of pillaging is much higher.

Columbus, Ohio

 

Lent 2012

What brings me back here?

The same thing that has brought me back so intermittently over the last few years, I need to write. I don’t particularly enjoy writing. It is hard. More importantly, it takes practice.

Today, I went to Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in downtown Columbus. Life has changed too much after the last two years. There are certainly many blessings that have come by way, but time is starting to like grasping at sand.

This won’t be a journal, because I am not a journaler. It will not be a place for formal academic thought, but I don’t often think that way anymore. It will be more considered than my twitter feed or the things I choose to note on facebook. It will be more than my tumblr.

What is my vocation? How can I live my vocation? How can I truly live up to ad majorem dei gloriam?

Columbus, Ohio

What are the stories I need to tell? What needs to be critically interrogated? Where will my voice come from? Where can I make a substantial and lasting contribution?

I once wrote a lot of stuff that was little more than brain vomit. I tried a couple times to write something more than that, but that never lasted. I was going to be an intellectual. I was going to have something to say about the way the world should be.

I am a father.

I am a husband.

I am a son and grandson.

I happen to own a house and have a job working to spread the digital humanities.

I wanted to serve God totally, but I became those things instead. I can certainly be those things and still serve God.

St. Joseph Cathedral, Broad St., Columbus, Ohio