Describe your call to ministry. What life events have led you to this moment?
Rough Transcript:
So In about 2002 or 2003, I asked the minister at the Unitarian Universalist congregation of Binghamton, New York about what it looks like to go into ministry. I was 18 years old and had preached the coming of age sermon that year, and it's what I thought I wanted to do. I’m from a family of Methodist ministers and academics, so in some ways this felt like asking about going into the family business, but back 20 years ago or so, Reverend Taylor told me to try something else first. So I went to college for pre-law and then ended up a religion major, and then I went to Peace Corps and decided not to do seminary. I came back to the Shriver Peace Worker program in Baltimore more and had decided once again that I would not go to seminary and become a minister. Then I got really sick. I had Hodgkin's lymphoma in my early to mid twenties, and while I was sick, while I was in the hospital, I had what felt at the time, like an epiphany that I had one life. I didn't get to choose how long it was going to be, but I did get to choose with what I was going to do with it.
I am very lucky that right around then I also met my now wife and had the support to spend several years changing career paths. That was almost 15 years ago that that story ends. It's been quite a ride since then. I count myself lucky pretty much every day that I found my way into this calling.