What are you, some kind of liberal?

My final year of college was a major turning point in my life for a variety of reasons, but spiritually it marked the beginning of a major transition away from the faith that I had been raised with. I was still at Asbury, but I began to dissociate myself from it in a lot of ways. I moved out of the dorms into an apartment, I took the minimum number of classes required to graduate, and I cut out most of my previously significant involvement in the spiritual life of the place. Significantly, I also stopped the program of daily prayer and scriptural study that I'd been practicing regularly since high school. I didn't at the time recognize what I was going through as a loss of faith, or anything akin to it. I just realized that the track I'd been on wasn't working for me anymore, and I wanted to move in a different direction. I began to see what direction that would be, and I did a senior presentation on Anglican Spirituality because I was interested in the broad and tolerant nature of the Episcopal Church.

Before I made any commitments though, I think I needed a solid break with the past, and the summer after graduation provided a convenient time. Angel (the girl I had dated all through college) and I got married, and moved to Louisville where she had attended college. Neither of us wanted to leave the Church totally, and we drifted for a year between a couple different churches. However, we avoided any involvement beyond attendance on Sundays.

We also made plans to travel. We originally hoped to join the Peace Corps and spend a few years in West Africa. However, those plans dissolved after a year of planning, for multiple reasons, mostly related to disorganization on the Peace Corps' part. Instead, we decided to head back "Down Under", this time to New Zealand.