I cannot remember a time in my life where I didn’t have any appreciation for God. Even as a young child when the whole concept of God was certainly an enigma to me, I never felt it as being more fantasy than reality. I was always very comfortable with the notion that a good God was watching over me. As a child, I was never approached by aggressive naysayers who wanted to challenge my beliefs and likewise I met very few spiritual professors. In fact it wasn’t until my junior year in High School when I met the first person that openly told me that he did not believe in God. And with that, I was astounded and then challenged.

 

When I graduated from High School, the Vietnam War was at its pinnacle. It was at this time when I got my first personal introduction to death. I have memories of times were I would be playing with kids one year, then attending their memorial in the school auditorium the next. I knew that I wanted to avoid the military at all cost. So my goal for self-preservation was to immediately attend college so to get the draft deferment.

 

College was a totally different subject. As a happenstance, I began my college days with Abilene Christine College. Although it was the one I selected, it was definitely not the one that I wanted. I didn’t choose ACC because I wanted a Christian education, but was totally annoyed over the whole process of looking for a college. On college night at my High School, my father gave me a stern mandate to go and select a couple of school that I would be interested in attending. But being the typical flighty teenager, I definitely wanted to party somewhere else and had absolutely no desire to do any ridicules research. So I devised a plan to get me in and out in the shortest time and at the same time satisfying my father’s directive. When I left home that night, I drove around to collect all my buddies. Then briefly stopping by the High School, I left my friends in the car, scurried to the auditorium where I walked up to the posted list of visiting schools for that night and picked the first one on the list – “A”, Abilene. I darted to their table, collected the appropriate paperwork, signed my name and left – never spoke to anyone. I was in and out of college night within 5 minutes. Later I told my father that I spent lots of time there, pouring over all the options and only after careful deliberation, chose AC… uuh… something. I rationalized that whether I fibbed or not was really a mater of perspective.

 

After two years at ACC, I transferred to the University of Texas, where I got a wholly different perspective of secular education. I was bombarded with all the reasons why religious are for those who need a social crunch. For the first time, I really questioned my beliefs and tried hard to but both view points into an agreeable perspective. It wasn’t easy; there were just too many evidences that denied God.

 

So educationally-wise, I eventually earned my Bachelor of Science in Communications and a Masters of Science in Management of Information Systems.