Seperation of Church & State

Working in the Bible belt adds some twists to public education that we never would have gotten away with in the northwest. Don't get my wrong, I appreciated getting Good Friday off becuase of its stature as a state holiday in North Carolina but was not something that I expected outside of Catholic school. My second run in with religion in the workplace came on Friday when we had our end of the year potluck at work. Before we were able to eat one of the men in our department was asked to pray for the food. Usually at conferences and such they still say a blessing before the meal, but make it something very generic, reading a poem or trying to use religious terms in the most general of ways, but this prayer was closed with "in Jesus name" and everyone said amen. Everyone I can think of in our department goes to church on Sunday, believes in and practices some denomination of the Christian faith and is probably very grateful to work in a place where they are able to pray at work, but is definitely something different and another regional workplace quirk.