During most of my life, Sunday mornings were spent in church. I would wake up early Sunday morning, exercise, shower, dress, eat, and drive to church. Until recently, I dressed for Sunday worship in a coat and tie, even during the wickedly hot Texas summers where I grew up and worked. People dressed …
Uvalde
After my sophomore year of college, I worked for Conoco Oil Company as a roustabout at a heavy oil project near the Texas-Mexican border. I enrolled in Southwest Texas Junior College and lived in the dorms at the Uvalde campus. I took two elective courses and ate my meals at the college. In the …
Workplace Comedy
Comedy shows about work are on the rise. The first TV show that comes to mind is The Office, an American mockumentary sitcom about everyday office life set in Scranton (PA). It aired for nine seasons (2005–13) and can still be viewed on reruns. Since I worked in an office all my career, the show was …
Safari
It has been more than two months since my last blog. On April 24, 2019, I published my first blog and until recently, I published at least one weekly blog. I felt the need to take a writing break and scheduled a sabbatical during my five week Covid-postponed travel. I wanted to fully enjoy this …
Social Teachings
I was raised in capitalistic America. My first employment was entrepreneurial: I created a lawn mowing business in my neighborhood which made me relatively wealthy compared to other children my age. I mowed four or five lawns a week for $5 to $10 each when the minimum wage was below $2 per hour. My …
Swearing
During 2004, I received a promotion into middle management and moved to The Hague (NL) to manage the Atlantic Basin LNG business. Shortly after moving to Europe, I was sent to an assessment center for three days where senior Shell managers and paid consultants evaluated my competencies as a middle …
Martin Luther on Vocation (Part II)
In my first blog on Martin Luther’s vocation theology, I wrote about vocational word definitions, Luther’s interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:20, and how people determine God’s will for their vocation. In this second blog, I will discuss four additional Luther vocation topics. I will again reference …
Martin Luther on Vocation (Part I)
Martin Luther (1483–1546) is best known for starting the Protestant Reformation when he nailed his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg University church door on October 31, 1517, and his defiant stand against the Church and State at the Diet of Worms on April 18, 1521. Lesser known is Luther’s prolific …
God, Grades, and Graduation
I grew up in a small south Texas community. The town was a mix of blue-collar and college-educated professional families who worked primarily in agriculture, energy, and aluminum manufacturing. My junior high and high school were even more diverse as a nearby small town of primarily Hispanics were …
Introverts
Opposites attract. I learned this reality early in life when I studied magnets during elementary school. The positive and negative sides attracted while the same forces repelled each other. I could feel the attracting and repelling magnetic forces when I held stronger magnets, which fascinated me as …