Recent New York PavementI went to a Born-Again Christian college. Evangelical, they call it. I went there because A) at one point I had been, myself, a Born-Again Christian, B) it was in Santa Barbara, California and C) one of my older brothers had already attended the school and was willing to use his good standing to pull the strings that overcame my spotty high school grades. 'A' is an interesting reason as when they accepted me, I was no longer a Born-Again Christian. Rather, I was given to selling bad pot, seeing Grateful Dead shows high on acid, drinking Henry Weinhard's ale and reading books by Alan Watts and the guy who wrote the Tao of Pooh. 'B' was a significant reason as I had long been smitten with idea of surfing, regularly buying monthly issues of the two domestic surf magazines since I was a freshman in high school and carrying them around like I was a PNW style Rick Kane. It really made sense to give that part of my poseur psyche a go. But really, it was 'C' that was the clincher. Had I not gotten into school in California, I would have had to attend a similarly bent school in Eastern Washington (land-locked Christian colleges are a little over-eager for screw-up kids apparently.) Once at the Christian school, I blended in reasonably well thanks to my familiarity with the topics at hand and my general lack of deep self-understanding. Christian college is actually a pretty fun place to spend time if you aren't hell bent on the easy pursuit of certain activities. The kids are really, super nice, the fun is really, super clean and the creativity in service of time-wasting and goofball antics is at an all time high. Thanks to the absence of inebriatory abundance, Christian college breeds a sort of wonton spasticity which I have only seen matched, and only recently, in service of my toddling son. That being the case, and despite the deficiencies inherent in an institution that fosters a collective myopia regarding certain subject matter, attending that sort of place isn't the horror show most people presume it to be. That is, if you're not gay, overly outspoken in your outré spiritual intentions or given to real intellectual inquisitiveness. Thanks to beachfront proximity, all criteria, I felt at the time, reasonably comfortable hewing to.
8 comments:
I knew it! I knew there was something weird about you that you were withholding big time. Christian College. Goodness gracious. And you're still trying to downplay it, even when you admit to it straight out.
By the way, we need to get Danny a new job. Now that he's unemployed he no longer posts to his blog, which is depressing. I visit his blog, then yours. That's the drill, ok? Now it's all fucked up cuz he's not posting anymore.
Dude, don't use that sort of language on my Christian blog.
Oh my. Well-said. Except the intellectual inquisitiveness thing. Heather Speirs = salvation. And not in the evangelical way.
Speirs, Whiteman, Obitts. I remember others too. Always there are others.
Its funny, I have attempted to answer your comment, Sara, a few times. Each time I feel like I haven't quite captured a real retort.
I'll just say that I won't disparage how I've learned things. Is it even really rationally plausible to lament learning? I think about all the things I didn't learn there. And then, all the things I did. Both scenarios seem to betray any truth of the matter. Namely, that what and how we learn is never planned for and often enough rarely understood even on scrupulous inspection.
I had a really fun time when I went to the christian college to visit todd but at the same time I felt like something else was going on there that I'd never know about.
We had some good times at Christian College!
I will never ever disregard the massive amounts of fun I had there. That would be blasphemy in its own right.
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