10 things about me
Here are 10 things. Take the challenge and tell the world 10 things about yourself.
I stumbled across an article by @Tim Cigelske, who wrote 10 things about himself. He also challenged the world to do the same, and to invite 10 more people to do the same.
It sounds like fun, so I thought I would give it a go. It is also a chance to shamelessly push some of my previous articles.
- I took a break. I have taken almost a month of Medium after having written every day for about six months. Of course my readership faded dramatically, but I was surprised that I was getting at least some reads every day anyway. Hopefully this will get me started again.
- I am a writer. I was in the newspaper business for many years, decades even. I am a freelancer these days and write on Medium just for fun. Medium is where I write what I want to write.
3. For the last three weeks we were in Montana. I love to travel. We drove there from Kansas and explored a lot of things on the way. It took a week to get to Glacier National Park, but we drove back in a single day. We got back last week and I’m still in recovery mode.
4. I live in a small town in Kansas. I Love small towns. I like exploring them too. I have lived in big cities, and in resort coastal areas, but still prefer the small town life. Small is relative. My town has 12,000 residents and there’s another one about the same size 15 miles away. I know people in Western Kansas who would think those are big towns.
5. I would say I am religious but I don’t like that word. Its almost a cliche, but, I am spiritual more than religious. I have always known about God. I’ve never had a question about the reality. The details are a different matter, but I know about the spirit world just like I know about my wife. It is that much of a reality.
6. I have studied religion, theology and the bible in great detail for about 30 years. I have a Masters degree in Religious Education. I have four semesters of graduate level Greek. I have translated the gospel of John, First and second John, and a couple of the letter of Paul from ancient Greek manuscripts.
7. I am a history nut. I love researching history, reading first-hand accounts and so forth. Maybe its research that I like best. That’s the journalist in me too. I’ve always been willing to go where the evidence leads. I don’t research to prove myself right, but I research to discover. Here is an example of how I combine travel and history.
8. I have a hefty cases of ADHD. There are some good things about this condition though. I never feel interrupted. It is a very misunderstood thing and it is real. I didn’t have a word for my craziness until I was an adult.
9. I am a flaming left wing radical liberal. Bernie Sanders sits a few seats to the right of me. This may seem odd considering what I wrote earlier about religion. But religion in America has been hijacked. I’ve always been too much of a free thinker I guess. But I don’t see how you can read the New Testament and not be a liberal. The Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew chapters 5–7) pretty much refutes conservativism at every turn. Even so I don’t have any political loyalty at all and am not all that interested in politics. It’s just that my ideas of social justice and morality tend to be very left leaning.
10. I want to be a storyteller. Not with writing, but with speaking words. I have portrayed some historical characters like Jesse Chisholm and Andrew Carnegie. Another one you may not have heard of is Buckskin Joe. (A friend and companion of Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill). This is something sort of new and may be a new chapter of my life.
Ok so there are 10 things off the top of my head. The challenge also suggested tagging 10 others and seeing if they will do it too. These are people whose articles I have enjoyed, so hope they dont mind a mention here. But it would be cool to see 10 things about them. Jessica Wildfire, Aman Litt, Elle Beau, Jonas Ellison, Eric Turner, Maarten van Doorn, Brian Brewington, asma adhimi, Tiffany Sun, Deb Knobelman, PhD