I got out of the Coast Guard, and my next goal was to race through college with good grades. Then I could go to seminary and become a pastor. I thought my perspective on Christianity and religion was one of the best, and therefore I did not need to learn any other perspectives. As I'm sure you can predict I was quickly confronted by my professors. I fought them as they taught me about new perspectives. I did not want to go back on the hard path of searching for meaning. Yet, I soon found myself on that path as I read the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. He wrote about loving one's enemies and I realized that I did not know how to have the strength to love. Yet, I felt his words to be true. King writes, "Jesus realized that every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God." So when Jesus said, "Love your enemy," he was not unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives." It was in this path of learning to love my enemies that I began to realize that they are not my enemies, and that their perspectives are just as valid as my own.

A s I was searching I found the field of Social Work to be consistent with this philosophy, and I began to develop a passion for working with people who had experienced social injustice. I saw myself as I privileged white male, and I had the strength to help those in need. If I could get a chance to talk to people I could fix them. (Obviously, I still had a lot of learning to do). I got that chance to work with a man who was homeless, and I was silent as he told me his story. I was in complete poverty again, I had felt that I had nothing to offer this man. Yet, as I look back I realize that silence and a listening ear was and often still is the best thing I have to offer. As I moved along in the social work program the professors fed me in my poverty. They taught me active listening skills, and they taught me more about when to speak.

Shortly, I will be off to seminary. There I will continue this journey, and I will continue the search for meaning. I pray that Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary will be a community that provides just as much support to me as Augsburg has.