Just a bit about me. I work in admissions at UWM currently, went to UWEC, where I was a devout young republican with fundamentalist religious leanings. I would have espoused nearly identical beliefs to Rob at that point.
But Twain said that travel is fatal to ignorance and bigotry. I've lived in the inner city, worked for peace in Northern Ireland, found my roots in Norway, and worked for fortune 500 companies, non-profits, the city, state, and now the UW System.
I've attended no less than 50 different expressions of christianity (I don't use capitals for that term much). I've worshiped with native americans, penetcostals of various flavors, high church Irish-Catholics, evangelicals, apostolics, methodists, baptists, black urban storefront churches, non-denominational, etc, etc, etc. I've now landed in an Episcopal church--where one does not have to divorce the intellect to believe.
I'm not a dyed in the wool Democrat (yet), but I have been leaning toward calling myself a Blue Dawg (I live in da 'hood) Democrat. I've been independent of a party affiliation since 2000.
I'm actually a reluctant union leader. I'm still not sure whether I am a union guy, but I was elected to the exec board, and represent all of the union at UW-Milwaukee on several committees.
So, I am a bit odd. I don't have absolute allegiances, or absolute beliefs at this point. I only know two things for sure: there is a God, and I am not God.
It's been incredibly hard to move from a group where I had a bunch of absolutes, tools with which to measure and judge the world, a precise world-view, and a sense of being right... to knowing very little.
Like my Tai Chi Ch'uan teacher has alluded to, learning that one knows nothing is the beginning of wisdom. I think reading Thomas Merton has really messed with my spiritual bedrock also, LOL
That leads me to the fact that I am a perfectionist, AND an artist. That means that I am always fighting between hemispheres. Life has been a strange journey for me.
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
— Thomas Merton
Peace,
Christian
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