Well, summer’s been good. Busy, confusing, so different from WCC, yes, but I think I can finally handle the two months until we’re back. Through some past experience through a hobby I managed to (among other things) get an internship in a career field that really interested me for part of the summer.
It was exciting look forward to it, is, and is also in the future-spect, thinking of future prospects on its lines. But at the same time, something I found so interesting and attractive has been now revealed in all its negatives.
Like in the Iliad “there are two ways for me and the heart within me cannot decide which is better”. It’s at least something like that. I’m not even sure what I’m saying but… “professional liberals”is the first thing that comes to mind. I long though they were only within liberal foundations, high up at major corporations or on the coast, but… boy has this summer been a shocker.
Let’s start with one co-worker. She’s “so excited that your son’s going with you to the Pride Parade. And you’re pushing him in a stroller? He’s going to love the costumes.” (said to another co-worker next to me)
And then the president of the company invites everyone to the parade, I get an e-mail explaining why they’re so excited to promote diversity along with a list of hundreds of other companies also participating (many were horrible shockers)
And on, and on…
Should one just ignore all that’s being pushed in such an environment and still pursue such a career? I may just be getting to cynical, but it seems that everything in the “cultural” America is far worse than I realized. I don’t mean to lead myself or anyone to despair but my struggle is this: normalcy or abandonment?
It seems I have an open path forward, beginning possibly next summer, to a career in this field, path of interest. It seems enticing. But doing so would mean giving up even more the ideas and lifestyle we are immersing ourselves in within the “outpost” that is WCC. It would mean immersion in this “world” of secularism and liberalism.
On the other hand, though filled with uncertainty and confusion, there is the other possibility, that of living in some way an extension of our life at WCC. Economically, culturally, etc. it is less appealing, but there is a hidden peace it seems to contain in the purity from the confusion, deception, and perversion of the world.
That is what we chose in coming to WCC, and while I remain in a confusion of mind, that is what I – no we – must keep in mind: A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it
The world is too much with us
but: …For all this, nature is never spent
In my confusion (especially this writing), the question still remains, though intellectually it was answered with the stroke of the commitment (and re-commitment) form. We’re called to be different, radically different.