The ironies of my life are many. (December '06)

I just finished typing a long response to a long response to a long response to a long response to a recent blog of mine.

In the spirit of relaxation and good humor, I'm unwinding by reflecting a bit on some of the ironies of my current place in life.

I have a lot of education in matters of religion. I used to be a youth pastor. I have a degree from Bible college and have worked in a church. I have some pretty strong convictions about what is right and what is wrong.

As a result of all that, I'll doubt I'll ever work for a church again.

On that note, I should also acknowledge that Christianity (or at least a perverted from of it) is heavily influential in both the popular media and the polis. This heightened awareness of religion has made it a lot harder for me to even get an interview for a job, much less a job. "No Bible thumpers need apply," and all that. Which is funny, because I'm anything but.

So as someone who is (willingly or unwillingly) associated with arguably the strongest cultural influence in middle American society, I am therefore almost unemployable outside of a small subculture.

That's both crappy and ironic.

I'm a big fan of Libertarianism and the Jeffersonian Democratic ideal, yet I am also a bit of a pragmatist and certainly more Hamiltonian in my social philosophy. Thus, I embrace ideals that I could never wholeheartedly endorse on a practical level. That's a bit ironic, I'd say.

I spent years learning and teaching religious philosophies as a physical manifestation of an idealistic drive to do what is right, no matter what the cost. The cost of doing what is right has been the refutation of many of the very teachings that I was told to embrace. That's definitely ironic.

I have spent many hours online discussing issues of race, economics, and cultural inequity with several others, but the bulk of this discussion has been with Malcolm-Jamal Warner on our blogs. Much of our discussion has been about the social and economic disadvantages faced by black people in a society that is inherently and irrefutably skewed to favor white people in almost every aspect of our daily lives.

I'm an unemployed, almost flat broke, white man in the deep south with no real connections, no notable triumphs in education or employment history, and not much justifiable hope for the future. I'm having these discussions with a well known, well-traveled, well-educated, and personally empowered black man on the west coast with a wide variety of options for the future.

That's ironic.

Finally, when I put my fears about the future aside, I have to admit the following:

I'm sitting here typing on a computer in a home with clothes on my back, food in my stomach, a great wife asleep in the next room, and a veritable plethora of resources that 95% of this world's population will probably never have--and I'm typing about how hard things are at the moment.

That's not really ironic. It's really more shameful than anything else.

And maybe that's what I've been needing to realize all along.