Looking Back at Sprint: The Job That Raised Me

Every now and then, I get hit with a wave of nostalgia so strong it practically knocks me off my chair. Today’s wave? Sprint. Yes… that Sprint. The one with the pin‑drop commercials, the long‑distance plans, and the customer service reps who could troubleshoot a customer issue while eating a breakfast burrito from the daily "roach coach" food truck.

My time at Sprint was one of the most defining chapters of my life. I didn’t just work there — I grew up there.

I was 26 years old when I was hired full‑time in July of 1987 in Atlanta. Before that, I’d spent a year as a temp in telemarketing, which I absolutely hated with the fire of a thousand suns. But full‑time? That felt different. That felt like a door opening.

I started in the correspondence department, typing up customer updates and replying to questions and concerns. A few months later, they moved me to the phones — live calls, real people, real problems. It was trial by fire, but I learned fast.

And this was a wild time to join the company. When I walked in the door in 1986, we were still US Telecom. Then came the merger with GTE Sprint. Within my first year, we became US Sprint. New name, new logo, same Ray trying to figure out how to work the phone system.

I spent two years in customer service before transferring from Atlanta to Sacramento in October of 1988. Originally, I was supposed to go to Burlingame, but that center gradually shutting down, and Sacramento said, “Hey, we’ll take him.” So off I went — 27 years old, cross‑country move, new city, new life.

My job was to help set up a brand‑new shift: Saturday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. I was the team lead for a group of freshly graduated customer service reps who were still trying to remember their login passwords. It was chaotic, hilarious, and one of the best experiences of my early career.

Eight months after moving to Sacramento, I was named a winner in the annual Achiever’s Club. They flew us to Scottsdale, Arizona for a week of celebration. I learned to drink tequila poppers from one of our managers (a skill I have rarely used since, for the safety of everyone involved). I even ran into folks from Atlanta — a little reunion in the desert.

The next month, I was promoted to QA analyst. I spent two years there before moving into Billing Services in 1991. And that… that was home. I spent the next 14 years in that organization, and I loved it. I made lifelong friends. I learned how to lead, how to collaborate, how to survive office politics, and how to laugh through the chaos.

Then I made the mistake of leaving for MCI for a couple of months. Let me tell you: worst experience of my entire career. When that company went out of business, I nearly threw a kegger. I’m not proud… but I’m also not sorry.

In October of 2004, Sprint told me my job was being eliminated. I had three months to train my replacement in Kansas City. I even offered to move, but they said no. So I trained a young guy fresh out of college. He lasted less than six months after I left before he quit. January 31st, 2005 was my last day...21 years ago from the date of this post.

It was sad — but also, the company had changed so much in those last few years that I was ready to go. And the severance package? Generous. I took almost a year off. I went to Disneyland ten times for their 50th anniversary celebration. Took a cruise to Mexico. Visited my family in North Carolina. And in November of that year… I met my husband. Not a bad trade‑off.

The old adage “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” is painfully true. I honestly grew up at Sprint. I learned about life, friendship, responsibility, and the “real world” there. I still have relationships with those people — group texts, reunion lunches, birthday dinners, memorial services for those we’ve lost. No other job has ever come close to being as meaningful or as magical.

I miss it terribly.

And if you’re wondering, “But Ray… what about your time in Christian music?”

Ah, my friend. That’s a story for another day.

There’s Going To Be a Reckoning

We have watched too long

as sanctuaries applauded hate

and called it holy.

We have felt the tremor in the pews

when cruelty passed for courage

and the name of Christ

was spoken like a weapon.

We have mourned

for the church that sheltered a predator

and named it forgiveness.

For the church that defended a fraud

convicted of deceit

and named it discernment.

For the church that excused a man

who broke vow after vow

and named it grace.

We have grieved

for the church that baptized racism

and called it heritage.

For the church that justified the deaths

of unarmed, innocent bodies

and called it order.

For the church that looked at immigrants

and saw “less than,”

forgetting the God who wandered as a stranger.

For the church that mocked diversity

as “DEI nonsense,”

forgetting Pentecost’s wild, many‑tongued fire.

For the church that shrugged at stolen secrets

and called it loyalty.

For the church that traded the kingdom of God

for the kingdoms of men

and pretended not to notice.

We speak this not in fury

but in sorrow ripened into truth.

Because hypocrisy always bears fruit—

bitter, heavy, impossible to hide.

Because every compromise of conscience

returns home eventually

and asks to be reckoned with.

There’s going to be a reckoning—

not thunder, not flame,

but the quiet collapse of what cannot stand,

the slow undoing of what was never rooted

in justice, mercy, or humility.

The natural consequence

of choosing power over compassion,

fear over welcome,

idols over the living God.

And still—

we believe in resurrection.

We believe the church can remember

her first love.

She can lift the wounded,

welcome the stranger,

protect the vulnerable,

and tell the truth even when it trembles.

Hope is not gone.

The Spirit still whispers in the ruins:

Begin again.

The Long Way Home: A Life Told in Key Changes

 I came into the world in 1960, in North Carolina, back when the air smelled like tobacco fields and Aqua Net, and children were raised on Jesus, casseroles, and the occasional spanking “for your own good.” My parents, Horace and Diane, were good Southern people who believed in hard work, Sunday services, and the kind of hospitality that involved feeding anyone who walked through the door whether they were hungry or not.

My brother Craig arrived two years later, and one of my earliest memories is of us watching the news the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I didn’t understand death, but I understood my parents’ faces — the way the room felt suddenly smaller, quieter, heavier. It was the first time I realized the world could break.

We lived in Weldon until I was seven, in a duplex close to where I attended a Baptist kindergarten and sang “Away in a Manger” for the Christmas pageant with the kind of sincerity only a five-year-old in a paper-plate halo can muster. Then my parents bought a ranch house on seven acres outside of Roanoke Rapids — a place with enough land to raise pigs, grow vegetables, and lose yourself in the woods for hours.

It was also the first time I learned that adults — especially church adults — could say some truly awful things with absolute confidence. When Dr. King was assassinated, I heard things no child should hear. I didn’t understand racism yet, but I understood cruelty. And I understood that sometimes the people who preached the loudest about love were the ones who practiced it the least.

Around that same time, something happened to me that I didn’t have the language for. A teenage boy sexually assaulted me for about a year. I thought it was a game. Years later, he apologized and told me he’d been abused himself. I forgave him. Pain echoes until someone decides to stop the sound. I chose to stop it.

But childhood wasn’t only shadows. I was a Southern boy through and through — climbing trees, feeding pigs, shooting guns, running barefoot, and pretending to like girls while secretly swooning over Keith Partridge. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I knew it wasn’t something I could say out loud. Not in the 1970s. Not in the Pentecostal Holiness church. Not in my family.

Music became my refuge. I started piano lessons in second grade with Miss Mildred Oxenham, who smelled like Chanel No.5 and had the patience of a saint. By 15, I was improvising like I had something to prove, worshipping at the altars of The Carpenters, ABBA, Streisand, and eventually Barry Manilow — whose chord progressions were so complex they would make Einstein scratch his head and give up.

My baby brother, Michael, arrived in 1970 and I loved every minute of taking care of him. My mom would have to wrestle me like Jesse Ventura to pry him out of my arms.

Christmases were pure magic — cousins everywhere, food everywhere, laughter everywhere. To this day, I tear up thinking about those gatherings. If heaven doesn’t feel like my grandparents’ house at Christmas, I’m not sure I want to go.

At 15, I hit the road playing piano for Christian bands. My dad hated it because he wanted me in my home church on Sundays. My mom — a woman who could stare down a hurricane — won that argument. But one of the men I played for turned out to be a predator. When he crossed a line, I walked five miles home and never told a soul. Decades later, he was arrested on 50 counts of indecent liberties with a child. I still wonder if speaking up might have saved someone else. That’s a weight you don’t ever fully put down. He died from a heart attack before going to trial.

I graduated high school in 1979, joined The Rex Nelon Singers in 1980, and spent six years touring the country, playing the Grand Ole Opry, and collecting Dove Awards like they were commemorative spoons. But behind the curtain, I was fighting myself. The Christian music world had more closeted gay men than a Broadway cast party, and I was drowning in shame.

My first gay bar. My first gay experience. My first gay panic spiral. AIDS was emerging. Fear was everywhere.

In 1984, I confessed everything to a pastor who then tried to seduce me. I left shaking, peeled out of the parking lot, and nearly drove off a bridge. I didn’t. I went home and cried instead. Sometimes survival looks like nothing more heroic than staying alive for one more night.

I tried dating a woman named Nancy. I broke her heart. I broke my own. I spiraled — drinking, drugs, clubs, self-loathing. Being told by the church that you’re an abomination makes you act like one if you believe them…and I did. Also, being told that you deserve to die with AIDs is something no one should say to another human being.

In 1986, I lost my music job after being seen at a gay bar. I hit bottom, then found community: a drag queen named Kathleen, chosen family like Rodney Webster, laughter, and people who saw me.

Then came Ron — brilliant, funny, 19, and eventually HIV-positive. We became like brothers. When he got sick, he moved to California to get better treatment. He met Jeff, the love of his life. Then I arrived in a U-Haul with his dog, Ross, and they welcomed me like family.

Those years were magic — Christmases, cocktails, friendship, my first real boyfriend (Tom…I loved that man and that story could be its own novel). And then Ron declined. Fast. I watched him waste away. I held him as he died. I stayed up all night with Jeff telling stories, drunk on vodka and grief. We stood on the porch and waved goodbye as the coroner drove away with his body. That moment is tattooed on my soul.

Loss piled on loss — my dad, my grandfather, my sister-in-law, my aunt. My relationship fell apart. I came out to my family. Depression swallowed me whole. On New Year’s Eve 1992, I drunkenly tried to end my life. I drank too much, took too many pills, and threw them all up. I woke up covered in vomit and regret.

But the important thing is: I woke up.

That’s when Marilyn Graham entered my life — a counselor who helped me deconstruct the shame of evangelical Christianity and rebuild myself from the inside out. My 30s became a renaissance. I worked out. I healed. I grew.

In 1997, I returned to music — opera lessons, theater, conducting, performing. I played Daddy Warbucks eight times, Sweeney Todd once (and loved being the villain), Jud Fry, Horton the Elephant, and even Oscar Madison with four days’ notice. I sang a lead role in La Boheme. Theater gave me back my confidence.

In 2005, I was laid off from Sprint after 18 years. I took a year off, taught voice, partied, took my mom and aunt on a cruise, and went to Disneyland more times than is medically advisable.

Then came James.

I was 45. He was 25. I almost didn’t go on the date. He barely spoke. I thought he hated me. Turns out he was just shy. Twenty years later, we’re still here — married, battle-tested, loyal, imperfect, and deeply in love. We’ve survived unemployment, illness, financial collapse, grief, and the occasional disagreement about whose turn it is to take out the trash. That’s marriage.

In 2012, we lost our condo in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Hard choice, no regrets. It freed us. We rented. We rebuilt.

Then — irony of ironies — after 26 years away from church, I took a job as a Methodist accompanist. I told them I was gay and married. They said, “Welcome home.” I stayed 13 years, decided to go down the path to become a lay minister, and learned that spirituality can be expansive, not suffocating.

In 2015, we bought our dream home in California. Ten years later, the world shifted, and we felt the need to find safer ground. We sold the house in three days, packed up our lives, and moved to Washington with no home lined up. We found our mid-century gem in Aberdeen — trees, rain, quiet, space to breathe. It feels like the right place for this chapter.

But here’s the truth: turning 65 hit me harder than I expected. I feel slower. I feel invisible sometimes. I feel “less than.” James jokes about my memory — not maliciously, but it stings. My mom died of dementia. The last time I saw her, she didn’t know me. That fear sits in my chest like a stone.

I’m anxious about losing friends. I’m anxious about my health. I’m anxious about becoming irrelevant in a world obsessed with 18-to-35-year-olds who think they invented everything from fashion to music. Meanwhile, I have more disposable income now than I ever did in my 20s. Come at me, tech bros.

But here’s what I know:

I’m not done.

I’m learning new systems at work. I joke about retiring “soon”, but the truth is I don’t want to. I’m diving into community. I’m exploring my spiritual path again. I’m renovating a house with the man I love. I’m grieving, growing, laughing, doubting, and reinventing — sometimes all in the same afternoon.

Life hasn’t been easy. But it’s been full. And I’m still here, still curious, still singing, still becoming.

Stay tuned. The next chapter is already humming in the background.

 

Spirituality Without Religion: What Grounds Me Now

If you had told younger‑me that one day I’d be writing about “spirituality without religion,” I would’ve laughed, clutched my KJV, and asked if you needed prayer. Back then, I thought religion had all the answers because that's the way I was raised. It felt like a map someone else had already drawn for me — clear, tidy, and laminated for durability.

But somewhere along the way, the map started to feel more like a brochure. Beautiful, yes. Helpful, sometimes. But not the whole story.

These days, my spiritual life looks less like a sanctuary with pews and more like a patchwork quilt stitched together from experience, grief, nature, music, and the occasional bottle of wine I swear I didn’t mean to finish.

So here’s what grounds me now.

Nature Has Become My Sanctuary

Moving to Aberdeen has been like enrolling in a spiritual masterclass taught by trees. The moss, the rain, the quiet — they all have something to say if I slow down long enough to listen. The forest doesn’t care what I believe. It doesn’t ask me to sign a statement of faith. It just stands there, ancient and patient, whispering, “Relax, sweetheart. You’re part of something bigger.” Even Lucy seems to get it. She loves exploring and sniffing the acreage here like she's checking for messages. She feels the presence of the deer and coyotes. She's making the connections.

I Still Love the Methodist Church… But I Don’t Live There Exclusively Anymore

Here’s the thing: I genuinely love the Methodist church. I love that it values conversation, honors disagreement, and doesn’t panic when someone asks a hard question. It’s one of the few places where doubt isn’t treated like a moral failure. A far cry from my evangelical roots. And I still attend regularly.

But I also feel just as “at home” in a Pagan/Wiccan ceremony or a Buddhist Puja. There’s something beautiful about traditions that invite you to experience the sacred rather than define it. Something freeing about stepping into a space where mystery is allowed to be mysterious.

I guess you could say I’m spiritually bilingual now. Maybe even trilingual on a good day. I am a member of the United Methodist Church and I'm even going through their Lay Servant Ministries program; but that doesn't mean I'm in a monogamous relationship with it.

Humor Is Part of My Spiritual Practice

I’ve tried meditation. Truly. But sometimes my brain treats silence like an invitation to think about snacks, laundry, and whether Paul Rudd is aging or just evolving.  Self‑hypnosis works better — sometimes. Other times I just fall asleep and wake up feeling spiritually refreshed but physically confused.

And yes, I once drank an entire bottle of wine during a mediocre movie and called it “a reflective evening.” Spirituality is a journey.

Grief Walks With Me, Not Behind Me

I’ve lost a lot of people — friends to AIDs in the 80s/90s, my brother, my mother and father, grandparents, Willow and Norbu. Grief has become a quiet companion, not an intruder. It doesn’t ask permission. It just sits beside me, reminding me that love leaves marks.

Grief has softened me. It’s rearranged my priorities. It’s clarified what matters and what absolutely does not. It’s taught me that presence is sacred, and that the people we love never really leave — they just change the way they show up.

Music Is Still My Prayer

If I have a religion now, it’s music. Singing and piano have always been the way I connect to something bigger — call it God, Spirit, the Universe, or the collective sigh of everyone who’s ever lived.  Music is the one place where all my worlds meet — the hymns, the Pagan chants, the Buddhist bells, the Broadway scores. It’s all sacred to me.

Small Rituals Keep Me Grounded

• Morning coffee while the rain preaches its own sermon

• Cooking plant‑forward meals that make my body feel like it’s on speaking terms with my soul

• Caring for my Lucy like she's a furry human

• Practicing self‑hypnosis to quiet the noise

• Choosing kindness over cynicism, even when cynicism is louder

These aren’t religious rituals. They’re human ones. And they’re enough.

Love Is the Center of Everything

James grounds me more than any doctrine ever could. Our life together — the laughter, the challenges, the shared dreams — is its own spiritual practice. Love, partnership, chosen family… these are the things that keep me steady.

And honestly, the fact that we can legally be married still feels like a miracle. A hard‑won one. And the truth is: the hard-right is still trying to take that away from us. The battle is not over.

I’m Learning to Trust the Mystery

I don’t need all the answers anymore. I don’t need certainty. I don’t need a map.

What I need — and what I have — is a sense of connection. To nature. To memory. To music. To the people I love. To the people I’ve lost. To the quiet voice inside that says, “Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

Spirituality without religion isn’t emptiness. It’s spaciousness. It’s freedom. It’s the permission to build a life that feels honest, grounded, and deeply human.

And that, for now, is more than enough.