Learning from the Mad Man

Don Draper: what’s next?

Are we supposed to feel sorry for the Mad Man? Maybe that’s a question that Matthew Weiner wants his viewers to ask. It’s a typical struggle with the main character of television show - the swinging back and forth from protagonist to antagonist. Think of Walter White or Frank Underwood: one moment we despise them and think, how can they stoop any lower? The next moment we watch in awe as they display their dark ability an utterly cool, cowboy way. 

Even though Draper (or Whitman) is similar in this regard to White and Underwood, he is still unique in that he never displays the deep darkness that the latter two are capable of. Perhaps this is due to the nature of Mad Men; it simply is not as dramatic as Breaking Bad or House of Cards (Captain Obvious alert). Even though Heisenberg, Jesse Pinkman, Skylar White, Walter Jr., and the rest of the BB gang occupy a normal, middle-class space in seemingly unimportant Albuquerque, Mad Men is perhaps a more genuine reflection of life. Albeit, it’s set in the 1960s, its characters have stupid money, they all live in NYC (some LA), and they tend to make every conversation profound; nevertheless, the show reflects the all-to-often understated status of life. People bottle their emotions. They are passive-aggressive. They are selfish. Okay, those factors can be traced in BB and HOC as well, but I hope you get what I’m saying. 

Life just goes on in Mad Men. There’s no epic event. There’s no impeachment to get into the White House (spoiler alert) or slitting throats or killing an entire biker/neo-Nazi gang that produces and sells crystal meth. Mad Men is about advertising: a glamorous industry that is filled by people who have anything but glamorous personal lives. 

As Christian commentators have expressed: the show is Ecclesiastes. Where is meaning? Where is happiness? Where is satisfaction? Everyone (especially Don) is continually searching for all of these and more. 

I really had the struggle mentioned earlier with Don Draper at the beginning of the show. I got angry with him. The man had a gorgeous wife, two children, a home, and a great job - things people would kill for and others spend their whole lives dreaming of. It wasn’t enough, in part, I believe, because it was somewhat built on a lie - a huge lie. Maybe that fueled his insatiable lust which brought him to cheat on his wife again and again. Nonetheless, he still had moments of irresistible charm, e.g., his carousel nostalgia pitch to Kodak.

It was a cycle with Don Draper. There would be moments when he actually understood that what he was doing was wrong: like when Sally walked in on him with another woman or when he realized what he could of had as he lingered in the kitchen of the Francis house after making his boys milkshakes or when he talked to Rachel Menken's sister at her funeral. Nonetheless, he doesn’t learn because his life does not have ultimate meaning. Every time he has a chance at something good, he simply restarts the cycle with someone like Diana the waitress because it’s a temporary high that puts a band-aid on his problems. 

This season we’ve seen Don get pummeled with right and left hooks by several different characters - whether it is Lou, Megan, or most recently, Mathis, who tells him that all he has is his handsome looks. Don has ability and Don has charisma and charm that not only attract beautiful women, but also corporate heads. But, what’s the point? 

In the most recent episode, "Forecast," Don is given an assignment by mustached-Roger to give a sort of “Gettysburg Address” on where SC&P will be in a year (1970). As he ponders, he encounters others such as mustached-Ted and Peggy. He finds that both of them are content with career goals. He remarks to Ted something along the lines of, “do you ever feel like there is less work, yet more to think about?” And he pushes Peggy past her goals of being the first creative director, landing a huge account, creating some lasting idea, and being famous. Beyond all that, Peggy doesn’t know what she wants, but she doesn’t seem to care. 

Is Don finally getting at something? In reality, what would be the point of him achieving anything more in his career? Why desire more? 

So, where does it lead? Even if he does fully come to grips with the futility of money and prestige, how can he find contentment? The only people who I think even slightly care about him are Peggy and Roger, but they only show it when they have to. And Don has become the Babe Ruth of spoiling every romantic relationship he has. Does the unavoidable, futile pursuit of life lead him down the road of Lane Price? Perhaps the finale will give us closure on this or perhaps it will just end and leave us in mystery.

We have to work. We have to care for others. But if life just ends when you’re done, that’s just sad. Maybe you say that you just make the most of your time here and that your legacy is the true meaning. What legacy will Don leave his kids? Even Sally recognizes that her parents are completely self-absorbed. In fact, it’s amazing that the show has kept up with Don’s kids and ex-wife for so long, despite the fact that he has no significant involvement in their lives.

The luster of Don’s career will end. One day, perhaps sooner than he thinks, no one in the advertising world will remember Don Draper. His divorce with Megan shows that the only thing he has left to give is money, and as cliche as it is, money does not buy everything. As the ghost of Bert Cooper sang, the best things in life are free. Of all these free things, there is only One who gives true meaning. 

Undergrad, Part 3 - Cedarville for a Week, Home, and Ashland

Cedarville: Immediately Before, During, and Immediately After

Let the debriefing continue, I suppose. The Facebook status below is now more than 3 years old, and it seems like so much has changed since then. I’m probably being overly dramatic, but I feel like a different person now. It’s not that I don’t believe the same things, or that my behavior has changed drastically, but I think that I have matured, and have grown in wisdom (I still have a long way to go, trust me).

Allow me to go back for a moment, and analyze myself during this time. As I stated in my previous post, I was eager, perhaps a little too eager, to transfer and start studying at Cedarville (the support that I received really helped and I am genuinely appreciative of that). In reality, it was the only school that I looked at. I was going to be away from home, so why not explore more Christian schools? There were plenty of them out there. Perhaps I would have come to the same decision, but it would have been a more informed one.

Forgive me for continually playing the hindsight game; it’s how I evaluate myself. The process of choosing to transfer (which, as I stated before, was incomplete) and the process of choosing a new school are accurate reflections of what I was like during this time. I was a Jack Russell Terrier chasing a truck down the street – bound up with energy and acting on it, but not exactly thinking my actions out. Could there be a better vehicle to chase, like one with assorted deli meats in it? Is running the most effective method to catch a vehicle? Could my energy have been spent better doing something else? Etc., etc..

I think that I had one half of the equation solved – willingness to act. I talked a lot about “surrender” back then, which is commendable, and I was probably still amped from the decision to embrace my calling. It can be hard to maintain that kind of spark, and maybe that’s a lesson for 21-year old Steve (third person, ouch). Many Christians talk about being “on fire” for the Lord (no, not literally), which requires boldness and taking risks. However, that doesn’t mean discernment should be tossed out the window.

Showing off a Cedarville shirt. Christmas 2011.

Once again, the only school that I looked at was Cedarville; maybe I thought that it was my only option because I was familiar with it. Nonetheless, I ignored the facts that it was in the middle of podunk nowhere, that there was no cable in the dorms, that there was a midnight curfew, that even holding hands with someone of the opposite sex was barely permissible, that wearing shorts was the unpardonable sin, and that students were required to go to chapel five days a week. (I’m not saying that these rules are necessarily bad things, but rather, the philosophy of having so many rules – especially when everyone at the school is supposed to be a Christian – is at least subject to question). Beyond that, there were serious hurdles to jump as far as transferring mid-way through the year (e.g., confusion with financial aid and the admissions department). I was told by an admissions counselor, “if God wants you here, you’ll end up here.” I hope that’s an indication of just how stressful it was to even start school at Cedarville, but it was only the beginning (dum, dum, dummmm).

This stress lasted all the way up to the day before classes, which was when everything finally got settled. As if starting at a new school with all of these rules, and knowing no one, and joining a new baseball team, and switching majors MID-WAY THROUGH THE YEAR wasn’t enough. Suffice it to say, I had a hard time relaxing.

I lasted a week.

I was constantly surrounded – whether it was in class, in chapel, at baseball practice, in the cafeteria, or in the dorm hall – but isolated at the same time. Maybe this was the product of being new, but I had never experienced anything even close to it. I had no orientation week; I was just thrown in, and I thought that wouldn’t be a problem. I thought I would be able to overcome any problems with my charm and charisma.

The classes were satisfactory, and I was excited for a couple of them. Some were overwhelming  (e.g., when a professor prays for 25 minutes on the first day, or when the first day of a class involves a 50-minute exam seeing how much students know about the subject), and I knew most of them would be challenging. I felt like a loner in most of my classes (all aboard the self-pity train), and it was a much different environment than I was used to. Yet, if the only uneasiness I felt about the school was due to these minor issues with my classes, then it would have been completely fine. However, there was more to it.  

After being in the best shape of my life the previous semester, I had drifted during break. Baseball began immediately, and I had no time to catch up. There were other guys that also joined the team mid-way through the year, but I still felt incredibly out of place. This was (once again) way different than what I had been a part of the previous semester. I felt like I had no compensation either; my pitching velocity was down, and I had a hard time keeping up with the team’s workouts. In other words, maybe the transition would have been smoother if I was a stellar player, or at least in good shape.

My anxieties about chapel and dorm life were confirmed. In my last post, I said that I was picky about the music that’s played at church-type services, and I still had this attitude at Cedarville (my stance on it currently is a subject for another day). The music at chapel was not what I expected, and it especially threw me off when the worship leader blatantly told the thousands of students in the auditorium to put up their hands (that’s just never been my scene, nothing against people who do that).  If that weren’t enough, students were required to go to two chapels a day for the first week of the new semester. Again, this was a new type of environment for me. I couldn’t exactly wrap my mind around the reasoning behind the strict requirement to attend chapel, let alone what went on during chapel services.

Moving on to dorms. With such incredible classroom and athletic facilities, one would assume that dormitories would be held to the same standard. Different from Otterbein, I shared a microscopic room with another person. It was a suite-style dorm; so, one suite had multiple tiny rooms, a 3’x6’ “longue,” and bathrooms shared with another suite. Do people around the world and even in the United States, live in worse living conditions? Absolutely. But, it still doesn’t make the conditions ideal – especially for the price of room & board. Not to mention, there was no girl visitation (which, I could get over), no cable, a midnight curfew, and the campus was 30 minutes from civilization. I felt like there was no escape.

Yes, the people were nice, but they had to be. I don’t mean that to be a criticism, but at times it felt like an obligation. I wasn’t a part of any group. I suppose it’s difficult to find that in a week, but I knew it would probably be tough for the rest of the semester. There were efforts made by some to include me, but being the new guy was a foreign scenario. Sure, it would have helped if someone had empathized with me more, but the people weren’t the ultimate reason that I left. So, if anyone I know from Cedarville is reading this, I hope you know that I hold nothing against you.

OK, hindsight game: looking back, I probably could have made it work. Maybe if I quit the baseball team, and just concentrated on my studies/social life, it would have eased my stress. Or, perhaps I blew all of the negative things out of proportion, and if I had just waited it out, I would have gotten used to the school, and found my niche. But, I was miserable. Once again, I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but it really was just an awful week for me. Not only was I in a difficult situation (one that I had never been in), but also there were so many things about the school that really didn’t sit well with me. Like I said earlier, some of this stuff I should have figured out before I went there, but a lot of it was unknowable until one actually experienced it. My aim wasn’t to roast Cedarville; there are good, Christian people, who do great things there, but I just had a strong feeling that it wasn’t for me.

I knew that students could get a full refund if they dropped out after a week, so I made that phone call to my mom. She supported me, but she made me make a plan of what I was going to do if I was at home. It wasn’t hard for me to come up with a plan of action. Even though I was excited about a lot of my goals, I told most people that God was calling me to be at home, rather than saying I was miserable at Cedarville. Most probably inferred that.

Home

This is what was on the list that I sent my mom:

1. Start Fellowship of Christian athletes at Midpark

2. Possibly coach baseball at Midpark

3. Lead Youth Group at Old Oak

4. Start music band at church (one or two songs a week)

5. Start a Not a Fan study

6. Study online/under Pastor Dave

7. Join Team Tebow organization, volunteer

8. Raise money/organize mission trip for the summer

9. Start Insanity workout to stay in shape

10. Start a basketball league ministry 

11.Continue to study on my own

12. Get connected with church family, outside of church

I came home with lots of ambition. I talk about “compensation” a lot, but in a way, my fervency to do these things served to mask my embarrassment of Cedarville not working out. Even though I was still conscious of how I was perceived by others, I still did the majority of these things, and I did them with a full effort.

            I tried to accomplish number 1, and went through Young Life, FCA, Youth for Christ, and others, but nothing worked out. The process was lengthy, so I kind of gave up on it after a while. I actually fulfilled number 2, and it was a great experience. I was an assistant coach for the freshman team at Midpark; I knew the other coaches well, and I enjoyed seeing the game from a different perspective. Admittedly, it was a little weird being a coach and still being 18, but that didn’t spoil the experience.

            I continued to lead the youth group, and for a while we split into two different classes – middle school and high school. I poured a lot into the lessons, and stressed over how many people showed up. I’m continuing to learn how to prepare in the wisest way, and I like to think that I emphasize relationships with students just as much as the material presented.

            Other accomplished goals off the list include numbers 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, and I halfway accomplished 7 and 12.  I played at most one song with another musician at church every week (yours truly was on electric drums). They were specials, rather than songs for the congregation to sing along to (hopefully that’s not confusing). I ended up taking online courses through Liberty University; they were low-level Bible classes, but they were for college credit. I also completed Insanity and suffered through Shaun T’s subtle lisp (FYI, I didn’t get that great of results).

4 on 4 B-ball Tourney

I ran basketball open gyms, which eventually turned into an eight-team league that ran on Sunday’s, and then went back to open gyms on Friday’s. I consistently had surprisingly big turnouts (we got to the point on Friday’s that there were over 50 guys in our tiny gym). I wanted more of a spiritual aspect to it, and I struggled with the behavior/language of some guys. I tried handing out Gospel tracts and inviting guys to Bible study, but I didn’t get any bites. Eventually, behavior mellowed, and I reconciled that guys knew what I stood for and what the church stood for, so merely getting them in the building was a good thing. 

I also started a “fifth-quarter” outreach for teens on Friday’s after the high school football games. It started small, and we struggled to get people there, but eventually we got decent-sized groups. We played games like hide-and-seek and dodgeball, hung out, and ate food. Once again, there was a lacking spiritual aspect, behavior got out of hand, and it became too much to handle.

I didn’t quit on baseball. I joined a men’s hardball league based out of Strongsville. I was the youngest on the team, but it was still baseball, and it was solid competition. I’ve played on that team for the last three summers.

I gained a lot of exposure/experience through my "compensation." I became more independent, and I learned how difficult doing any kind of church ministry can be. In my previous post, I said that God began to put me through a humbling process after Otterbein; once I had been home for a few months, I began to realize this. I gained insights in how to deal with being a young person in a leadership postion, and I was slowly learning to embrace my past with school, instead of being embarrassed by it.  

I didn’t want an online college degree. I still wanted the experience of being at a school, yet I didn’t want to lose all of the things I had been working on at home. This limited my search to schools that I could commute to, or go back and forth without that much of a hassle. I ended up choosing Ashland University. It had a religion department, and after communicating and meeting with the department head, I felt confident that it would be a sufficient program for an aspiring pastor.

I lasted a semester.

Ashland

I thought coming at the beginning of the fall semester would make for a smoother transition. In a sense, it did, but it wasn’t as helpful as I thought it would be. Orientation is a lot different as a transfer student, and I ended up rooming in an old fraternity house that the campus took over (I requested it because it had air conditioning). Thus, I didn’t make immediate connections like I did at Otterbein.

My classes were adequate, but none were especially challenging. I talked to a few people in my classes, but it can be hard to make deep connections during an hour-long lecture. Occasionally, I was assigned group projects, which forced me to meet with others outside of class. This was okay. I like to think that I get along with people generally well, but people usually already had their own agendas and their own sphere of friends that they hung around. I know, these are excuses; I could have tried harder to get plugged in. However, for a while I attended The Well, which is essentially a church service on campus every Thursday, and I went to a small Bible study on Tuesday’s. Based on what I grew up with, I wasn’t really comfortable at The Well, and I am aware that I leave myself open to criticism because of that, but it’s how I felt. Thus, I didn’t really hang around those people all that much (again, it’s not that they were bad people). Moreover, I was gone every Wednesday night for youth group and every weekend for basketball on Friday’s and church on Sunday’s. I became satisfied with just being a student at Ashland; or maybe a better way to put it is, I became satisfied with staying inside of my shell and being completely independent. I went to class alone, worked out alone, ate alone, and did homework alone.

Selfie in my dorm at Ashland

One of the aspects about Ashland that attracted me to it was that I could get my bachelor’s and master’s in 5 years, since there is a seminary connected with the school. What I didn’t realize is that this meant that the religion undergrad program would be a little thin. If my memory serves me correctly, religion majors were only required to complete 30 credits, which led the faculty to recommend to most students to pick up another major. I guess I could have gotten over this if I was blown away by how great the religion classes I had taken were, but they were pretty underwhelming (my world religions professor was a little out there, man * hippie voice *). It also would of helped if there were more than 10 other religion majors. All things considered, I started looking at other schools.

For still wanting to be close enough to home to go back and forth frequently, and wanting more out of Christian-based degree, I saw Malone University as my last hope. The school had a Bible & Theology degree that seemed much more comprehensive than Ashland’s religion degree. At the end of the day, like my time at Otterbein or Cedarville, I probably could have made it work at Ashland. More time would have brought connections. I could have been more “open-minded,” and actually made an effort to consistently attend The Well. I even could have put going back home on hold to get the full college experience. Nevertheless, for how great of an investment a college education is, I desired more out of it, and that’s the ultimate reason why I decided to transfer, yet again. Was it a fair judgment after only being there for one semester? One could say no, but I still believe that it was.

Once more into the fray - I would try again and transfer mid-way through the year. It was easy for me to feel sorry for myself, and to look at myself as a failure or an outcast for continuing to go from place to place. That attitude often kept me from seeing the positives in circumstances, taking risks, and being outgoing (that was the theme of my first semester at Malone).

This is where I’m leaving you – on the brink of 2013. My next post will be my last, and will cover my time at Malone, where I’m at now, and my current plans for the future. To those at Cedarville and Ashland, God bless you. Perhaps my decisions to leave either school wasn’t fair, but I want to communicate once more that it was what I believed to be best at the time. One of the themes of my posts has been that you can’t go back and do it over, but I believe God has used my decisions – whether they were good or bad – to continually mold me into the person that he wants me to be. 

My Undergraduate Experience, Part 2: Otterbein - When Everything Changed

          Welcome to part 2. I am struggling with how to open this post. Do I just jump right into the story or should I ease you into it? The only tidbit that I can muster up for easing you into this part of my story is a reference to Hollywood movies. This really isn’t that original, but I suppose that I’ll let you be the judge. How many movies have you seen where the protagonist is a college freshman (usually a male) who arrives on campus with a determination to reinvent him or herself (e.g. Accepted, An Extremely Goofy Movie, Road Trip, Monster’s University, Drumline, etc.)? Maybe the similarities aren’t that distinct, but to me, it seems like a familiar scenario is set up in these movies. Why? Perhaps, this moment is so often used because it is such a profound period in a person’s life - for reasons that are pretty obvious. Generally, in these movies, the protagonist is pictured as some sort of an outcast who enacts a strategy to try to fit in on campus (usually by joining a fraternity or sorority, let’s not get into my opinion on that). There are various difficulties, stock college characters, and a happy ending where the protagonist learns how to truly define him/herself, blah, blah, blah. As lame as this all sounds, I do fit this process in a way.

Right Before Otterbein

        

This was at my grad party. August, 2011.
Not sure what my dad was doing.

Yes, I had a strategy going into Otterbein – doesn’t everyone have one going into college? In my last post, I mentioned how conscious I was about the way I desired to be perceived by others. This entailed having a Christian identity, athlete status, success as an honors student, and a funny/charismatic personality, among other things. None of that changed when I went away to school, except now I had the chance to develop that image with a new group of people after honing my craft in my senior year. Not only did I like Otterbein as a school, but I also saw Otterbein as the perfect fit for my self-serving, image-building campaign. These thoughts that I am relaying to you right now did not exist in this developed form back then, but they absolutely had influence in the back of my mind.

         Otterbein was a school where I could perfect the image that I wanted. It wasn’t a big party school, it had a solid Christian community, it had an honor’s program, and it had a baseball team that I was going to be a part of. On their own, these are great things; in fact, these are blessings. However, like most good things, they can be corrupted by using them for the wrong reasons and in my case, it was for selfish gain (i.e. gaining popularity and that elusive cherry on top, a girlfriend).

         Yet, this only covers my plans for the social aspect of college. What about my future? What did I want to be when I grew up? That little kid who played sports to fit in desperately wanted to grow up to be a professional baseball player (there aren’t many boys who don’t have the desire to be a professional athlete during some point of their childhood). Like most boys, I eventually realized this wasn’t going to be a reality and for most of high school I didn’t exactly know what profession interested me (I remember thinking about marketing and finance, but those thoughts waned). When I signed up to take the SAT and ACT, I had to mark college majors that intrigued me. I recall seeing “Sport Management” as one of the options; it could have said anything after sport and I would’ve marked it with a check. So, I started to look into what fields one could go into with a sport management degree, until one clicked – sports agency. I had seen Jerry Maguire and heard the names Drew Rosenhouse and Scott Boras on Sportscenter and I figured that it was the next best thing to being a professional athlete. Thus, I looked for schools with a solid sport management program and after getting my bachelor's, I planned on getting my law degree.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

         I never stopped to ask myself why I wanted to do this, or at least ask myself, how can I serve God as a sports agent? This should have be an essential question for one who wanted to be known as a strong Christian. It’s not that one can’t honor God as a sports agent, but I simply never had that thought. Once again, I had the completely wrong perspective on the blessings and opportunities that were given to me, but in grace, God seemed to lift blinders that were keeping me from seeing the entire picture.

A Semester to Remember – Flipping Upside-Down

             As with most college students, orientation week was my first exposure to campus life. It was a hotbed to meet girls and an effective network to make friends. To make matters easier, I felt like I had a wingman – my roommate who I went to high school with. Despite meetings and paperwork, I remember the week being a blast. I felt confident as I began my classes and was eager to start baseball. I sort of have a lot of scrambled thoughts about my time at Otterbein, so it has taken me a while to try to come up with a way to tell you about it. However, I suppose the best way to do it would be to break it down into my impressions of baseball, class, and social life, and then explain how I came to feel the need to transfer.

             

My friend and fellow pitcher, Dustin and me

One of the things that I was anxious about with baseball was fitting in with the team (me concerned about fitting in? shocker). I thought that all college athletes did in their spare time was binge drink; I was naïve. When fall ball began, I found out just how much time a college sport takes up. I had never gone through anything so physically demanding – whether it was the amount of throwing we did or our workouts. It was tremendously difficult for me, but I could see myself improving, which made it worth it.  Moreover, my doubts about fitting in were shattered; I ended up loving the guys on the baseball team. Sure, they expected freshmen to work hard, but once you showed that you were willing to do that, you were accepted into the brotherhood. I even made friends who were strong Christians and they were both upperclassman, yet they never treated me with condescension. This was the first time that I had been a part of a team whose players were so tightly knit and who all bought into working extremely hard.

            As far as classes went, they weren’t as rigorous as I expected them to be. Granted, they were all freshman-level intros or gen-ed classes, but I didn’t have that tough of a time getting A’s. Also differing from my expectations was my sport management class. Not that there cannot be arduous aspects of a sport management degree, but when I was in my intro to sport management class, I saw that I wasn’t challenging myself academically. As a matter of fact, I realized that I had been doing that for a long time. I sort of alluded to this in my last post; namely, how I tried decently hard to get good grades, but I didn’t work hard to actually learn. This realization began the process of changing my outlook toward school and how I absorbed information. Thus, I questioned if being a sports agent was what I really wanted to do; I thought about trying broadcasting, or maybe something completely different…

            We come to the social aspect of my time at Otterbein. When I think about it now, I remember nothing negative about this, but I know I felt differently at the time. First of all, I made some solid friends in my dorm hall and my roommate and I were close. Secondly, I got plugged into OCF (Otterbein Christian Fellowship), which was a Campus Crusade ministry that met on Thursday’s. Growing up in a small church, I never had that many Christian friends, so this was new and exciting for me. Thirdly, I had guys from baseball and we even had a small Bible study. The experience of being at a new school, with its athletics, classes, organizations, and people naturally gave me new perspectives. I mentioned that one of these was how seriously I took my education. Another one ended up being how seriously I took my faith. For a long time, I strived to give the impression that I was a knowledgeable Christian, whose actions by and large lined up with his beliefs. Just like I wasn’t challenging myself academically, I realized I wasn’t challenging myself spiritually. I wasn’t engaging what was being taught at church. Neither was I engaging the daily devotional or the chapter of the Bible I read each day. I collected knowledge. I treated these as tasks on a to-do list. It wasn’t until I came to Otterbein that I found friends who dared me to read the Bible and truly take it seriously. Additionally, they asked, instead of being satisfied with the status quo, what if you genuinely tried to grow or improve in your walk with God?

Central Ohio Campus Crusade Fall Retreat 2011 (I'm Ricky Vaughn)

            I accepted the challenge and with it yet another new perspective came. My love of God had previously lacked any sort of passion/joy. I suppose Christians can have dry spells or speed bumps, but this was a true re-commitment. Now that I was willing to challenge myself academically and spiritually, I came to examine my future plans. I asked that question that every Christian should ask him/herself – how can I serve God in what I want to do? To push it further, how does God want me to serve him? These are rather big questions to deal with and I wrestled with them for several weeks. I came to feel called to pursue full-time church ministry. I interpreted circumstances at my home church as well as the gifts (e.g. personality traits and mental aptitude) that I believed I had been blessed with as God pointing me toward that direction.

            This new direction (band name, I called it first) caused me to ask even more questions – primarily, was Otterbein the right place for me to be trained for full-time church ministry? Yeah, I struggled with this one too, but if I am honest with myself, I never really gave staying at Otterbein a chance. As soon as I encountered this question, I automatically assumed that the answer was “no.” I began to nitpick at certain qualities of the school. I took things like occasionally eating meals alone and not liking a certain message/song at OCF as indications that Otterbein wasn’t the place for me. I had people who really wanted me to stay and tried to show me how I can still grow as a Christian leader at Otterbein. Even though I prayed over this decision, in reality I had made up my mind without truly hearing out both sides. For the question at hand, a negative answer was probably the logical one. However, I wish that I had made the decision in a different way. I wish that I weighed the relationships I had made at the school in such a short period of time and saw how truly special they were. I even wish that I considered staying another semester to make a better-informed decision.

            I don’t want you to feel sorry for me – I know that these are good problems to have. This is me telling my story and you can criticize all that you want. That’s a precursor to say that I spent many a night longing over the fact that I chose to leave Otterbein and desperately wished that I never had or at least that I could find something else like it. But you can’t continually focus on the past. I had to play the cards that I had been dealt; a hand that many people would love to have. I had to learn from my mistakes and trust that God was still in control, even if I didn’t understand what he was trying to do.

            Of course, I didn’t have any of these feelings in December of 2011. I was confident in my decision. After a series of heartfelt goodbyes, I chose to transfer to Cedarville University and I was anxious to get started. I planned on majoring in pastoral studies and playing on their baseball team. I made sweeping declarations going into the new school. Perhaps my fervor was admirable, but I probably bit off more than I could chew. I think that God helped me grow in wisdom through a humbling process that began in 2012.

            That is where I will begin my next post: 2012, a taxing and peculiar year for me. That year included my (short) time at Cedarville, other activities I did during that spring semester, and another new school. Once again, everything that I describe to you is the best that I remember it and it is based on how I currently see the events. If you would like to know more or have any questions about what I’ve wrote so far, feel free to ask! If you have made it this far, thanks for reading! God bless.

A Note to My Friends at Otterbein

            When I left Otterbein, I promised to stay in touch with many people. Some I did for a little while, but even those contacts faded after some time. As time goes on, the connection becomes less relevant or at least becomes less fresh in one’s mind. Things come up, days go by and it thus grows easier to not send that text or Facebook message. I never visited in part because I was embarrassed of the decision I had made, especially after what happened at Cedarville and in part because it was too painful for me to rehash those memories. These were weak excuses. I know the people at Otterbein would have embraced me, rather than hold my feet to the fire - something that was proven when I went to see the baseball team play at Baldwin Wallace. I feel awful for not making more of an effort – it was cowardly and I am sorry. I cherish the memories that I have of Otterbein; whether it was karaoke at Applebee’s, fall retreat, hanging out in Mayne Hall, or sweating through a circuit workout. Thank you to each person that made my time there what it was. I am forever better off because of you.