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Yellow House Days

  When I was living in the yellow house Senior year, I wanted to understand the world. I wanted to know how I fit in. I thought that once I understood, I'd know what I wanted to do with my life—working at a job I hated to pay for a big house or fancy car didn't make any sense to me. I wanted to do something that made a difference in the world, but first, I needed to understand my purpose in life.      When I attended Huntington, I was a Christian. I loved it. I could ask lots of deep questions. It was a way for me to understand the world and my place in it. I cared about knowing the truth. I thought that the other parts of Christianity, all the going to church, the singing songs, the waking up, wasn't as exciting. All I cared about was digging down and finding the truth. The more questions I asked, the more complicated things became. The answers to all my questions left me more and more confused.       When I left college, I wanted to make a dif...
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A little about conversion

 I've been ruminating, but not writing, for a while now. On the surface the greatest discontinuity between my life in the Yellow House and now is probably religious affiliation. I was a bible major in college and in our senior year was confirmed in the Episcopal church. I thought when I graduated that i was on my way, if slowly, to seminary and the priesthood. Today I am a practicing Muslim. I've been thinking about how to tell that story. The problem is there isn't a neat narrative. No definitive spiritual experience or clear line of reasoning that clicked into place.  It is important, I think, to note that I did not convert from Christianity to Islam. I left  Christianity slowly. Then I spent some years as a bitter ex. I'd like to think that I have reached a more compassionate place and that Islam has something to do with that. When I returned to the US from Egypt in 2013 I missed the sound of the call to prayer. I started reading a lot about Islam and seeking out fem...
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23 years later

 In the spring of 1998 we all graduated from Huntington College (well, I technically didn't until winter 1999 because I had to take a PE credit, even though I'd been a four year, two sport athlete).  A lot has changed for me since being at Huntington, but I wouldn't trade that experience for anything: it was the place I needed at the time to become the person I am today.   I am always curious about how people from HC live today--what they believe, what they value, what they do.  There are certain core things about me that I think have not changed from my years at HC.  For example, I continue to be passionate about real, genuine dialogue about (what I'll call) "the human condition."  This includes religious questions (Is there a god?  Which religion is "correct"? Can one rationally maintain religious exclusivism?) and questions about how one ought to live (including questions about sexual ethics).  I have come to hold different views on these topic...
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The academic year of 1997-1998, our senior year at Huntington College (now Huntington University), Cal, Jared, Dave and I lived together in a yellow house on Himes Street.  It occurred to me the other night on my run that it would be really interesting if we had a conversation about our lives and how we have changed since then.  I'm also interested in the ways in which we have NOT changed. Although we are all white men who (I take it) lean left socially and politically, I suspect there is nevertheless quite a range in the beliefs, values, and experiences we have had.  No topic is off the table: relationships, sex, parenting, religion, politics (writ large)--basically any topic, including ones that we are socialized not to discuss in polite company.  This blog is about that.
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