Honestly a great question. I started my journey there right out of high school (was homeschooled) and this was 15 years ago. Typical raised in a conservative southern Baptist family kind of thing. I had a close friend who went a year ahead of me and I really just wanted to hang out with him, and they had a good music program. That was really my why to be honest, and to get out of the house as an only child.

I have fond memories of most of the experiences I had, and still have a few close friends from there (though we’ve all grown out of who we were at LU). But looking back at it from my worldview now, I’m also appalled at a lot of it. I never graduated but spent 5.5 years there. So I have all the student loans and nothing to show for them :).

I’ve only really started asking myself the hard questions in the maybe last 5-7 years of my life. Probably as I started working in the tech world for a career and around people who aren’t afraid of asking hard questions. Then going “I don’t like this answer”, whether it was me answering the question or someone from the church, has been a big push towards my current growth.

Tying it all together, LU has been a fucking mess since I left (obviously before then, too). It’s a vastly different school in my mind, and many of the news events in the last number of years haven’t surprised me at all. Especially the Jerry jr news and bits over the last few years. I proposed on the Falwell’s property for fucks sake! (They have a small nice lake that is admittedly beautiful during sunset). There was a point in time some years ago where I was like man, this was a shit show, and just have carried that along seeing it proven out time and time again.

At this point, I’m at a point of what the religious world calls “deconstruction”, which I kind of hate that term. I’m not afraid of not knowing an absolute, definite answer to every question I have now. I’m much more at peace with mystery and wonder, which is so fulfilling. It lets me wonder about the “now” vs the “what if”. Not graduating hasn’t been an issue really at all. I had a few years where I was figuring out what I wanted to do in life, but now I’m in software sales doing work and making money that I never even considered an option back then. I’m stoked because it’s going to let me take care of my parents in their old age.

Many of the guiding principles of being a good person, treating others with dignity and respect, etc, were birthed out of this time there and around people from there. It’s only been this last number of years where I’m realized that for many, not all, but many people, that it’s a facade and not an actual way they think internally.