I have a hard time with small talk, dinner-party phoniness and the whole idea of sucking up to a boss or someone in a superior professional position. The idea of learning how to "network up," which I once taught students in a high school career course I designed, makes me want to vomit. I know it's good advice, because I've seen it work throughout my entire career by people willing to do it. But I cannot do it personally.

I have certainly heard the cliché about how we're supposed to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO. But in practice, I have rarely seen that happen. What has hurt me professionally is that I tend to treat the blue-collar folks with great respect and upper-level professionals with disdain. Too often, I have no respect for these higher-ups because I find many of them to be incompetent suck-ups.

"Successful" people often seem to be the type who care more about how they are seen, how much money they make, how big their house is or how much they have traveled, rather than being good people — or even good at their jobs. This way of things is part of American professional culture, which I believe is a big part of why so many people in this country feel spiritually empty. Selling your soul for a promotion, a larger home or job protection can never fill that void.

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This leads me to Donald Trump, Kari Lake and the other so-called Christians who pretended to care about abortion. As I just suggested, there's an important difference between people who are obsessed with how they are perceived and people who are living examples of the beliefs they espouse. Trump and Lake are good examples of the former. Former Vice President Mike Pence, although I believe him to be foolish and wrong-headed, is the latter.

You see, Pence truly believes that abortion is murder at any stage, that being gay sends you to hell and should be cured and that a liberal pastor like myself is almost certainly controlled by the devil. All of that is real for Pence, which is why he finds a way to embrace every Republican political agenda that points toward those evangelical goals. From my perspective, it's too bad that Pence has ignored the teachings and ministry of Jesus Christ while professing to........

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