I would like to have an office. An office with a bookshelf. And drawers. With dated folders, labelled. Maybe I would come up with my own personal library stamp.

Sitting in Luther and watching profs go in and out of their little rooms, locking, unlocking, doors peeked open so all I can see is a bit of blue chair, books. It reminds me of my dorm room, long ago. Little personal tavern crammed full with textbooks and binders and tea and self.

I remember the office back at the farm. A family office, predominated by dad's heavy religious books stacked high above the anvil of a computer. One said For Christians Only . I was always scared of that black and white book. Like it was bad. Forbidden. I climbed up and grabbed it one day, alone, but all it was was black words on white pages. I put it back, exactly.

I'm not sure what the big deal is. Last night a classmate asked me questions about religion. "You people that love Jesus," she said. It makes me exhale, ready for all the questions that I can or can't answer with my own slant, belief, disbelief. Maybe ten years ago I would have seen it as an opportunity. Red-faced proclamations that look more like shame.

"I don't want to be offensive," she said.

"I won't be offended," I said.

It's too bad things like spirituality and believing in something larger than self, which is the road paving to self-transendence on old Maslow's
scale, have become so guarded. Awkward. Off topic. Heavy. Can't a person just believe in something that isn't rational?

Probably not. Anyway, I hate that book. The title, rather. For Christians Only. Give me a break.