Reinvention is part of being an adult in the 21st century, I believe. I have reinvented myself several times over the past decades, and am now in the process of doing so again.
My path has been circuitous and I often frame that path in the realm of the spiritual and the beautiful. Several years ago, I was had a revelation, or message, that reoriented how I understood my life. That message was this:
“Beauty is leaving the world. Some have been called to be curators of beauty. These people will be needed so that others can remember what beauty is. Seek and find beauty and preserve the memory of it.”
The message is a little dark, but so am I. Regardless, I am working hard to apply the mission of the message.
With that in mind, a circuitous path has brought me to this moment. I have always had an attraction to the unusual, strange, and weird, ever since I was a little boy. Add in a few mystical experiences, and you have an English major in a Minnesota farm college with a predisposition toward peak experiences. This led me to seminary in north St. Paul to receive a Master of Arts in Religious Studies. There I studied St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Mary, and the Gnostics. While there, I also worked in a bookstore. And I was part of a martial arts community.
Eventually, the martial arts community turned into a commune. Later, the commune turned into a cult. By the time that happened, I was a father. After I lost my job working as a sales guy for a chiropractic clinic, I needed work fast. A reasonably well-paying job with full benefits came around in the financial industry. The multinational company licensed me in Series 6 and 63, which allowed me to move mutual funds and deal with insurance. After I triggered a viral event before the advent of viral events, I found work with a private equity firm in Minneapolis. After a few years there, I sold insurance for 9 months and went broke. Then I went to Wells Fargo and stayed with them for at least 5 years in various departments.
I found my way back to the church, and remembered that, years ago, I had felt the call to ministry. So on the advice of a great pastor, Rev. Dr. David Fisher, I started seminary slowly and involved myself in the church. I graduated from Luther Seminary and was ordained in June of 2008. Immediately upon my the completion of my ordination, we packed up the cars, rented a UHaul trailer, and made a trek across the plains to Cooke City, Montana, where I pastored Mt. Republic Chapel of Peace, a church that serves Yellowstone National Park just outside the Northeast gate to the park. Mt. Republic prided itself on being a training church for new pastors. I was glad for my experience there, and it was a wonderfully diverse and vibrant community.
After a year and a half in Montana, I was called to pastor Rockland Congregational Church in Midcoast Maine. Rockland is halfway between Portland and Acadia National Park, right on Highway 1, one of the most popular roads in the USA. Rockland was a very small town and was also halfway a tourist town and fishing port when we moved there. I served Rockland Congregational Church for 13 years. The community was caring, friendly, and engaged. It was an excellent place to pastor a church.
But things change. The financial situation of the church didn’t allow for me to continue, my spouse had found good work in New York City, and our kid wanted us to be closer to them as well. They live in Brooklyn. So at the end of December 2022, I joined my family in Brooklyn.
But in between 2019 and moving to Brooklyn, I also got a Doctorate of Ministry degree. I studied with Dr. Leonard Sweet at George Fox University/Portland Seminary. The program was “Semiotics, Church, and Culture”. My project was on Extraordinary Spiritual Experiences. This work explores the cartography of the spiritual and the extraordinary and how we make meaning of those experiences.
Since moving to Brooklyn, I have been turning my doctoral project into a book, speaking at some conferences, and been on a few podcasts. Now, I am looking for work positions in the so-called secular world. NYC is a pretty great place to be doing this.