When was the last time you left your well-paying job to pursue something so radically different?

I did it six years ago. I quit a job that paid over $40,000 a year to take one that paid $10/hour, because I wanted to focus on my writing and the better- paying job was too demanding of my time and energy.

I wasn’t calling myself an atheist then (I think I was calling myself an agnostic). But my lack of belief in a personal afterlife was definitely a strongly motivating factor in my decision. I hit 40, had a classic mid- life crisis (minus the sports cars and cosmetic surgery and affairs with much younger people), and realized that if I really wanted to be a serious writer I had a limited time to do it in.

Also, a more “extreme” example: In Mexico, in Espinoza, Nuevo Leon, there is a cult/religious group called Fidencism (Fidencismo in spanish). It’s derived from Catholisism and most followers don’t know it’s a different thing… but that’s another matter.

In Fidencism there are “cajitas”, people who get possesed by a spirit to heal people. And to become a cajita you don’t need to be a strong follower: it’s enough to fill a job aplication and have an interview. Where the heck is the mysticism there?

The worst part is, when he was exposed, I think he managed to get off the hook for it.

The criminal record check I needed to get for the Clinical Pastoral Education was the same one anyone else needs to get to work with those considered “vulnerable” (whether categorized as such by age or ability) and was conducted by the RCMP (I’m Canadian). The psych exam I did not have to take but friends of mine did was administered by a professional psychologist. I don’t know much more about it than that.

That said, the focus appeared to me to be first on my temperament, then my theology, then anything else. On the other hand, I have lived in this diocese all my life, and many of the members of that first church council that interviewed me had known me since I was four, and most of the people on COOM had known my parents for twenty-some years. I can’t say whether people with less-known histories needed deeper background checks.

At the time I wasn’t an atheist. Now I cannot imagine going back to cubicle world for any amount of money. Life is too fricking short and valuable to serve a corporate master. “Doing mindless menial labor at exorbitant wages” as my friend George used to say of us managers.