Daily writing prompt

What quality do you value most in a friend?

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When I think of someone, besides my wife or siblings or collegial relationships, who I would consider a friend, only a couple people come to mind, and they are old college buddies who live halfway across the country. There aren’t many people in my life who fit in the category of friend, but those who do, it seems, have always accepted me for who I am, and we still make the occasional effort to keep in touch and visit.

I have a number of acquaintances by virtue of serving as a pastor in a couple of congregations, none of whom I’d consider a friend or confidant, but kind and decent people, just the same, with whom I golf or can still strike up an occasional conversation.

Now that I think about it, the only true, through-thick-and-thin, brutally honest friendship I’ve had in my life was probably with a classmate throughout most of the grade school years, but we drifted apart during the college years and after. Life took us in different directions.

Daily writing prompt

What jobs have you had?

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Early on in high school, I worked on a farm for a summer, doing odd jobs and mowing grass. I vaguely remember the first paycheck– a relative pittance, but it was my first legitimate paycheck. Then it was on to a restaurant part time through the later high school years and for summers during college– dishwashing, short order cook, prep work, occasional busboy. I also started working at a corrugated container manufacturer towards the end of college.

I substitute taught for a year or so after college graduation, then it was back to the corrugated container factory, working various shifts, including the “graveyard” shift (11-7), which I did for ten months before deciding it was an assault on circadian rhythms and wasn’t gonna work for me.

The closure of the container factory precipitated a bit of downtime, i.e unemployment, so I got into a bench assembly training program and was able to get a job at a company that made high-powered CO2 lasers. It was probably the best job I’ve had– fascinating technology, interesting work and people to work with.

In the early 90s, I left the laser company and we headed to seminary in Gettysburg, PA. I spent the next 26 years after graduation as an employee of the church, pastoring a total of three congregations, technically speaking, during that time (my first call became a consolidation of two congregations that ended up staying in the building and changing its name).

Since retiring, I’ve occasionally helped my son with his landscaping business.

And once a parent, always a parent.

Daily writing prompt

Do you practice religion?

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I used to. Not so much anymore. I guess maybe I’m a late-onset agnostic. I want to believe, but I’ve always been something of a skeptic, wondered about a closed canon, read Sapiens, dared to listen to people like Sam Harris, and simply looked around, which has all contributed to the current spinning of wheels when it comes to actively looking for a worshiping community.

Faith is faith, and reason is reason, and it’s always been a matter of finding a workable melding of the two. I guess I haven’t found that yet.

Daily writing prompt

Do you remember life before the internet?

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Yes. We seem to have gotten by just fine. Probably spent more time either outside or in front of the television, or just talking to people face to face. News came from the Big 3 networks– ABC, CBS, NBC– and maybe CNN or Fox. If we needed a fact, we looked it up in a book, an encyclopedia, or were more likely to head to the library. If we needed to talk to someone, we called them on a landline or dropped them a note in the mail. It’s not like we weren’t without options– just not as many.

I don’t think I’d want to go back, though.

Daily writing prompt

What are you good at?

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I’ve been told I have a certain acumen for putting pen to paper, words on a page. Other than that, I’m not sure.

I could throw a baseball pretty hard for a while. I have some patience for doing painstaking work. I take good care of our yard, compose a decent photograph, play the accordion, sit at a piano and play songs by ear, none of which is particularly significant or lucrative, but provide some enjoyment. I have a knack for remembering dates and other little known facts of lesser known value, though that’s starting to fade a bit. When I was a pastor, people sometimes told me I had a non-anxious presence, which helped in certain situations.

Daily writing prompt

What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?

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As it is often portrayed in various media, it means nothing to me. It smacks of frivolous, material pursuits, artificiality, skewed perceptions of what’s important. A self-involved, distracted life, a neverending exercise in futility, or dominance.

On the other hand, I’ve heard people gush that they feel like they have it all when they get a clean bill of health or realize somebody loves them. So, it might be attainable in a subjective, personal way, as a matter of opinion.

More a feeling than a measurable standard.