From the Desk of the Editor...

On Introductions, Reprise

I originally posted this a little under a year ago, but with the sudden influx of followers I’ve had in the past few weeks/months, I thought I should repost it.  After this, I’ll probably just add a link to it on my page.  If you would like any more information, feel free to ask.

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I’ve had this thing about a month and a half now, and for all but two days of that I had just one follower (my roommate’s fiancée, though I’m not sure if she actually read my posts or just followed to be nice.  It’s tricky, dealing with nice people…).  Now I’m starting to gain people I don’t actually know, the first time in my experiences on the internet for anything like that to happen to me.  And it makes me think that maybe I should go ahead and introduce myself, maybe tell those of you that don’t know me a bit about myself.  It’s mostly so you can get an idea on where I’m coming from half the time, and who knows.  Maybe it’ll pre-emptively clear up future confusions on here.  So, here goes.

I was born in Alabama in 1982.  My dad had just graduated high school that year and my mom dropped out upon discovering she was pregnant (they were married by this time).  My mom would later go get her GED and is now on an extended run through college, but I only tell you that so you don’t think she just gave up school and was done with that.  I grew up in the area where my parents met, in Mercer County, PA (we lived in a number of towns in that county as I was growing up, it seemed easier than listing them all, especially since all of one of my readers has a chance of knowing where most are), starting roughly when I was 2 months old.  So, I don’t have a southern accent.

The town I grew up in used to be a steel town, but the mills mostly left in the 70’s and 80’s.  By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, it was a dying city.  Attempts to fix it since have met with utter disappointment, and I grew up exploring a city full of abandoned buildings, old bridges, and people who wanted nothing more than to leave but didn’t have the money to get out when everyone else had.

I was raised in church.  I don’t actually remember when my parents started going, but I’m under the impression it was before I was born, though I know neither of them went as kids.  By the time I got to my teens my dad was a liscensed minister.  The bulk of my ethical views, since they normally come from your home to some degree or another anyway, are very largely based upon the Bible for this very reason.  I would end up slipping away from the church in my mid-teens and not coming back for close to a decade, but it wasn’t because I stopped believing.  It’s a long story and I’m not gonna bother with it here.

I took an interest in science as a kid and that has shaped a lot of my interests since.  I don’t remember when I first took an interest in the matter, though I’m told I was saying as early as five that I wanted to be a ‘space scientist’ when I grew up.  I do know that I didn’t devote nearly as much study to the matter before I was around nine as I did after.  It was the result of a conversation with my pastor that went something like this:

Me: “So, we’re supposed to reach out to others, right?  Tell them about the gospel?”

Him: “Yes.”

Me: “And the only thing we’re being taught as stuff to tell them is the Bible?”

Him: “Yeah, it’s all in there.”

Me: “But, they don’t believe the Bible.”

Him: “I know.  That’s why we’re trying to reach them.”

Me: “But…if they don’t believe the Bible, and that’s the only support we’re giving for what we’re saying, why should they believe us?”

He didn’t have an answer for me, so I decided that there has to be something out there that will give the gospel credibility to people who didn’t believe it.  I started studying science more devotedly, figuring that if God had created the universe, there should be a ‘fingerprint’ of sorts, somewhere.  I just didn’t know where.  At any rate, I’ve become so used to that study that I tend to think in terms of testing and research and deduction about pretty much everything.  I would later learn that there’s a thing called apologetics, a style of outreach among Christianity (we’re not the only ones who have one like it, but the big two for it are Christians and Muslims, not always in that order), that focuses on exactly the style of outreach I had been suspecting should be out there when I was a kid.  I’ve taken a keen interest in learning more about that.

I was a horrible student.  As soon as I learned how to read, I stopped caring and spent the rest of my elementary and high school years getting into trouble, not paying attention, getting good enough grades on tests that I was passing with B’s and C’s without doing a single piece of homework or, usually, classwork.  I started a minor riot in fifth grade over plans to tear down our playground.  After a number of other kids got in trouble for the matter, I learned that none of them had been willing to tell the staff who actually started it.  That sort of thing would end up becoming a hobby of mine, to the point that when I went to Ozzfest the summer after I graduated High School I met a stranger, started up a conversation, and learned that he had been there a few years earlier when people had lit the hill we were on on fire, and now fire was banned from Ozzfest every year at that site; and that was why there was security walking across the top of the open auditorium structure with walkie-talkies and binoculars.  I looked around at all the piles of garbage that had been gatheres up, and suggested we light one on fire.

Him: “I just told you, we’re not allowed!  Though it would be cool.”

Me: “No, look, people are sheep.  You just have to be the first.  If we light one up, all over the place, others will go up, too.  By the time they get people over to the fires to arrest people, they’ll never get us.”

Him: “I dunno…”

Me: “Come on, would I lie to you?”

And so we did.  Within twenty minutes we were standing off to the side, watching security escort other fire-starters out of the concert past us, never giving us a second glance.  They never did figure out how so many fires started up so quickly.

I went to an art school, more as a quick decision one morning that I should go to school than any particular desire to get a career in the field.  Due to outside circumstances, lack of preparation, and a host of other glitches, I dropped out six months later.  I started to calm down, try to get my life in order, figure out where I wanted to be heading.  I finally got back in a community college back in 2007, to get some credits that I could transfer elsewhere.

I’ve been engaged twice, to the same woman.  The relationship surrounding that was one of the largest learning experiences I’ve ever had, and my attempts to get my life on track enough to support a family plays a large role in how I broke a lot of bad habits and started (or resumed, as many of them were things my dad taught me as a kid and I had eventually stopped doing) some good ones.  That ended back in early 2006, I think, but attempts to work it out ended July 2007, when she ran off to France to be with a guy she met online and I had a small nervous breakdown.  She would attempt to be a part of me life for a while after that, but I was done and finally managed to get her to leave me alone just barely over a year ago.  I’ve not been in a relationship since.  For a while I knew I wasn’t ready for one, and everyone I’ve asked since I got past that has said no.  I’m not nearly as worried about it as I used to be, though.

My brother (of which I have two full brothers, one step-sister, and a half-brother, all younger than me.  Oh, yeah.  My parents got divorced in my late teens and have since gotten married to other people.  Hence the half and step business), the middle one (so called because he’s the middle of the original three of us, who were all born within four years of each other.  By the time Sarah became part of the family at age five or six, the youngest of us was only a couple years shy of graduating.  The newest addition, Gage, is one), went to school in the Boston area to become a pastor.  He decided while up here that he wanted to start his church here.  Wanting to get out of my hometown, away from my ex, interested in the Boston area, wanting to help my brother, and a host of other reasons conspired to bring me up here to help him out.  Then he went back home to get financial support and experience in the position, so I’m taking the time to look into getting into college up here and finally get my degree as an Astronomer, or as I used to call them, ‘space scientists’.

And that’s pretty much that.  I wanted to do this as a quick-and-dirty version, and I almost pulled it off.  I just love telling stories too much.

Editor’s Note: I’ve since moved to Amherst, where I’m involved in a church called Mercyhouse and am currently trying to make the necessary arrangements to run for Congress.

Editor’s Note, reprise: I now live back in PA.  And I’m engaged again.  To a different woman!  So, you know.  Things are changing.  I should probably just delete this post entirely and replace it with a new one.  I’ll wait til after the wedding.  If you see this later than September 2011, yell at me to do so.