So I wrote for the school catalog, applied, and was accepted. There was only one problem. Prairie wasn't accredited. You couldn't get a degree there. You could graduate. You could get a certificate. But you couldn't get a degree.
Not so long ago I had gotten my score back from the ACT test. I got a 30. It was funny how clueless and out of the loop I was about some things. People would ask me my score, and I would tell them, and they would get a little bug eyed. And I was thinking, "That must mean that 30 is a good score?" I didn't even know. Finally some of my buds set me straight. I wasn't up there with the super geniuses, who got 32-36 scores, but I was had scored higher than 98.7% of the students who took the test in the country that year.
This seemed so weird to me. If you had asked me to guess, I would have put myself in the 80th percentile. Maybe 85th? But 98th? Apparently, I was smarted than I realized. Or maybe I was just better at taking tests? By the time you are a junior in high school you have sort of figured out where you rank in the old pecking order. I was a below average athlete, somewhat socially retarded, B+ / A- student. Then I got a 30 on the ACT. Go figure.
It would probably have made my life a lot easier if I had a bad day when I took the test and got a lower score. If I was pleased with my high score, mom was ecstatic. Her insecurities were eating her alive over her firstborn who had dropped out of college, so all of the hope and expectation came to be focused on little old me. And now, all of a sudden, I wasn't just a smart kid, I was in the almost/not quite a genius category! I could go anywhere and do anything!
And I was not, no way, absolutely wasn't gonna happen, going to some hick school on the Canadian prairies where I couldn't even get a legitimate bachelors degree. Thus spaketh mom! She wanted me to be a lawyer, but she would have no problem with me being a minister as long as I did it right. You get a four year bachelor's degree, and then you go to seminary and get a master's. And then you get a job in a mainline denomination with guaranteed minimum salary and, hopefully, the cream will rise to the top and you'll end up in one of the big churches and make decent money and everyone will love and respect you (and your mom will feel good about herself!).
To be perfectly honest, it sounded like a good plan to me. I had no problem with it, except for the fact that, as far as I could tell, the Creator of the universe wanted me to go to this Prairie place. And when the Creator of the universe wants you to do something, you just have to suck it up and do it. Even if everyone, and I mean virtually everyone, in your life thinks you are crazy.
To be continued . . .
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