Coming To Terms

I feel like writing.

I had a troubling dream last night. Not sure why I am sharing this... I'm pretty sure this all came about from reading "The First Two Thousand Years" by W. Cleon Skousen. The man has a flare for the dramatic in his writing style. A large portion of this particular book dealt with Adam and Eve and their family. There was a substantial piece on Cain and Abel, and the concept that Cain started the "secrets of the ancients" with assistance from the enemy was discussed at some length. So, there's the background. Oh, a second bit of background...Oriah and I had dinner at a place called La Caille last night...fancy, French-themed restaurant in Utah. Picturesque, garden-like grounds. Stunningly beautiful. Ok, with those two pieces in place...the dream: I'm walking in said picturesque garden and while walking on grass under the shade of tree, off to my right, I come upon a two, or three, step entry way into a covered walkway. Outside the entrance to the walkway is a wooden sign fastened to a wooden stake in the ground that reads "SECRETS OF THE ANCIENTS." I walked up the steps and walked into the covered walkway. All I remember is looking at the ground of the walkway maybe a few feet off to my left. I didn't dare look, or walk, down any more. There was a very dark and disturbing feel to it all. I honestly felt that if I had looked down, or traveled down the walkway, any significant distance I might see the enemy standing in the walkway, waiting for me. Bad vibes. Real bad vibes. I woke up and didn't go back to bed for quite a while. Kind of gave myself the heebee-jeebees just now writing that all out. Can't say I've ever had that kind of experience, or feeling, from a dream before. I don't think I should dwell on it any more. Hopefully that dream is done and won't be revisited tonight, or ever again.

Now, regarding the post title. The picture I had in mind would refer to the "Back To The... Drawing Board" post a few days ago and it would say "Back To School" but it would look like a Drafter's blueprint...kind of like the "Home Improvement" television show logo. But I didn't find one so...no picture.

I found a great Church job to apply for towards the end of last week and had been working hard on tailoring my resume and cover letter for the spot. One catch about those Church jobs...they come with the disclaimer: "All positions are subject to close without notice." I've been caught unawares by this little clause at the very end of their job descriptions once before. Well, today was #2. The closing date on this particular position was October 10th; two weeks from when I first stumbled upon this little ray of change-of-employment hope. Plenty of time to get my application in, you'd think. Well, I guess not. I was working on this application as of Monday (two days ago.) Took yesterday off to spend with Oriah. And then this morning I went back to finish the application and apply and guess what?

Gone.

Removed more than a week-and-a-half early. And such is a fair approximation of how my job search has gone since December of last year. A rather prolonged, beat-my-head-against-a-wall experience.

Now, you may or may not recall reading a post from me on the former blog more than a year ago entitled "A Vision." Recently I've been able to, not only come to terms with my nightmare of a job search but also, put it into words. I'll give it a stab...

First, I've known for - well, I guess - more than a year now that I'd likely be going back to school. I was hoping that it would be later than sooner so I could make some decent, I'll say, "MBA" money before diving back into the world of academia on a full-time basis. But sooner it seems to be. Mostly evidenced by my endless struggle to find any other kind of meaningful employment than what I currently find myself. Again, it has been like beating my head against a wall for 10 straight months. The disappearance of the Church posting this morning was the nail-in-the-coffin for me and the tell-tale sign that my focus needs to change from an employment search to an academic search.

Second, which has been the most important and, at the same time, the hardest concept to get my head and heart around...changing my paradigm about the whole MBA experience/degree. By watching my friends, and now having experienced this first hand, I've seen time-and-time-again how the best path from point "A" to point "B" in a person's life, for the Lord, isn't a straight line. Hardly. He's way more concerned about a person's character than comfort level and He'll take a person through the most meandering path if it will accomplish the desired change/result. I guess the length of the path is mostly determined on how humble and obedient (willingness to be molded) the object wishes to be. In my case - not so much. So my path gets to be longer and harder until I finally agree that His way is best and has been since I decided I didn't want to exactly follow it the first time it was brought to my attention.

So, here I am. I started graduate school thinking that at the end of my two - make that three - years that I'd be rocking the free capitalist world with a six-figured salary and all the other entitled thinking that comes along with the privileged path of your average, white male. Having taken a step back from my wish list perspective and looking at things from the Lord's perspective (or, at least attempting to do so) I can see that the MBA had little, if nothing, to do with my future occupational life. Getting into a BYU program (it just so happened to be the MBA program but it could have been any program I suppose) was the vehicle to get me to the area, meet the people that I needed to meet, learn the things I needed to learn and prepare me for that which was to come...it had nothing to do with the degree which I so tightly associated with my sense-of-self and sense-of-self-worth. So, like I said over a year ago in that "vision" post...I didn't come here for the MBA. The degree had nothing to do with it. My future and path to glory are not tied to the MBA so I need to stop pursuing that dead end. It doesn't exist. It never existed.

Time to do what I knew I should have been doing a while ago except for the fact that I wanted to do things my way which was the hard way. But the Lord is patient. He kindly let me inflict enough self-punishment to the point where I finally took the hint. It's time to start studying for the GRE and research what schools to apply for either a Masters or Ph.D. in a field of study which needs to be narrowed down from a number of current interests. Time to stop looking back and time to start moving forward.