I never had any plans on going to college. I never really thought about it much. Always figured I'd just get a job doing manual labor of some sort. In high school I excelled, well, I really enjoyed my blue-collar classes, welding, metal shop, woodshop, wrestling, art. I threw papers in high school, worked on restoring cars with my brother, did landscaping for a bit, tended racing horses after school, worked at a truss plant, and busted tires up until my mission for the LDS church. All of this was as I was told to do in working hard and saving for a mission. I was told about saving for my mission as a wee lad, but now they really drill it into the little people's heads (They even talk about going to the temple, taking out your endowments and getting married and sealed to you eternal spouse in the temple, to kids from 4 on up - their messaging seemed really desperate to me the last time I attended their primary services). With my mission savings, I was able to pay for my entire LDS mission and more.
But, just prior to my mission, I went to the patriarch of the stake to get my patriarchal blessing. Now, if you don't know, a stake is a step higher than a ward, covering all the wards in which actual members meet and attend Sunday meetings. So this patriarch guy was somewhat of a big cheese. And if don't also know, a patriarchal blessing is kind of like a fortune told, or a spiritual road map of your life, even telling what once happened, as well as the wonderful things that will happen. This "promise" usually comes with the clause of, "as you stay faithful" ... I always thought that meant to Jesus and the Truth, but the sentiment can be expressed as different as one patriarch is from another in expressing himself into your "Spiritual Path" that is to be taken as your spiritual fortune, and being promised a spot on the right hand of Jesus. The key is that the blessing is null and void if you stray.
Anyway, my patriarch gave me the usual blessing, even told me I'd see angels ...
The point I'm trying to make is that after giving me a wonderful blessing, he pulled me aside when everyone was done shaking my hand, and he told me, almost in stealth, that he had forgotten one thing.
"I wished I had told you in the officially recorded blessing that you should seek an education. After your mission, I had the very strong impression that you should go to college.", he whispered.
Well, I sure thought a lot about that secret of all secrets whenever I read my official patriarchal blessing. All through my mission I thought upon it. And sure, being somewhat a plausible wonder if maybe IT WASN'T supposed to be IN my officially recorded version!? Or any version at all. Because maybe it t'was an evil spirit that did'th speak to his mind's ear? Especially if you consider that the long-term effects of telling me to go to college and putting that bug in my ear would eventually cause me to leave my LDS faith.
Well hell! That had to be Satan!
To which I say, "Thank you Satan.
Satan, as originally used and understood in the old testament, is an angel sent from god to block a way that would prove bad for you or others. Yes, Satan may appear your enemy, since nobody really wants their way blocked. Seems like everybody wants to get their way, do it their way, and have it their way these days. No one wants their way blocked! So naturally, god's angel Satan is dispersed and made the bad horrible thing he or she may be for telling your stupid baby ass NO, but at the end of the day, Satan was just trying to save you from choosing a path not really meant for you, at least in god's eyes ... but, in the end, it's really your choice, isn't it? At least that's what I heard attending my religion, the sanctity of agency, and personal choices.
Anyway, when I got home after my mission, guess what I did? Enroll in school?
Nope! I went back to what I knew. School honestly scared me, and no one in my family had gone to college. I became a parts puller at a NAPA warehouse distribution center. It took me getting fired after three months and being told that maybe I was more cut out to be a brain surgeon.
That did it. My secret blessing outside my official blessing was right. Maybe Satan did rule this world after all, as I was told ... as god's angel of bad news and a path not meant for you. I should go to college.
I had a tiny severance and the money I'd saved while working three months, as well as that leftover from my mission fund to do it.
So I enrolled at the UofU, and against all odds, I chose to become an Electrical Engineer on a High School Minimalists' transcript ... 6 years later I was one. (I put myself through college as well) ... 12 years later, I was using the same tools I used in college, primarily books, learning my way out of the LDS faith, while going a bit crazy in the process of holding on to what "I Know" against what is known.
But my mind gets to wondering sometimes about what if? Like what if that patriarch, high priest, and shaman of fortune had failed to act in telling me what god and angels, maybe even satan wanted me to hear? Who would I be now? Where would I be? That, my friends, is a world of mysteries. But, I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad I listened to that wise old man and went to university, and I'm glad he pulled me aside. Where would I be today had I not earnestly believed in the words of that man and that their direction came from God?
Religious things will always be a mystery, and I think that's the way they're supposed to be. Faith is way too easy when you force yourself to "know" a thing you want to believe outside the realms of scientific inquiry. Hell, that's not faith. Knowing is not faith, and things of faith cannot be known until they actually happen, if and when they do. And if they don't - these stories that go past living - you will be none the wiser, or even the sadder for it. You will simply cease to be. But at least you heard some wonderful stories while you were here, maybe even lived a few of these fantasies in real life. Who's to say more what a life is worth than the one who lived it? And remember, people are really good at telling stories along the lines of their own paradigms. ;)
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