Getting to Know You

I have a little game I play when traveling. I regularly hear strangers meeting strangers, and usually within thirty seconds to a minute one asks the other, “What do you do?” Well, when someone asks me that question, I respond, “I teach in a graduate school.” Invariably I can see by their response, their body language, that my doing places me in a fairly high category in their value structure.

Of course their next question is either “What do you teach?” or “Where do you teach? When I say “New Testament” or “a theological seminary,” in most cases I can see from their reaction that they…