i'm giggling, and i must preface this post with a "no disrespect intended" disclaimer, and end it with a "now don't get all ranty on me" admonishment.
first of all, my thanks to kelso for 3 guest posts that caused a number of you to spew coffee. you know they are good posts when that happens.
last night in my class, we were discussing this article from a few months ago that talked about would-be teachers who fake religion (specifically of the catholic genre) in order to get a job at a catholic school. because in general, there are more teachers than jobs, and so desperate times call for desperate measures.
discussion ensued. do i join the discussion or do i not? i wasn't going to. and then i did anyway. i was feeling saucy. i explained that i'm not catholic. not even a little bit. i'm certainly not against catholics, although recently, the Vatican put out this reminder that i'm a "serious canonical crime" and i'm thinking of getting that put on a t-shirt.
anyhoo, i put my two cents into the discussion, after explaining that i'm a (not catholic) protestant pastor who would probably be a little bit irritated at someone faking my faith in order to get a job. (recognizing that the public funding part of the discussion adds a whole new piece to that pie, and i wasn't going down that road.)
the whole discussion was fairly light-hearted and respectful, but i suspected it would come back to bite me. and it did.
at the break, i wandered down towards the vending machines, pondering the spiritual meaning of m&m's versus twix. or would i rather get an iced tea? hmmmmm. saw a fellow student coming down the hall, one who had differed in opinion from me. she paused, and then blurted out - "i'm not evil or anything! it's just that ... " and although i laughed, and reminded her that i'm not catholic, and i don't really care that she thinks differently than me, i'm pretty sure her guilt mechanism was in full force. i get that. we pentecostal-protestants have a fairly active guilt mechanism at times too.
i'm thinking of setting up a protestant confessional in between classes ... just for such times as this ... whaddaya think?
now don't get all ranty on me, ok?
