Vocational Autobiography

Early in my life, I felt a desire to help people. A set of goals I wrote before my Junior year of high school demonstrates my desire. The goals included not only included scoring a touchdown in football, running a specific time for the 220-yard and 100-yard dashes, and maintaining my grades; I wanted to attend Oral Robert University (ORU) to become a minister by 1989. Based on the example of the United Methodist minister and Iliff graduate who lead the churches I remember attending, I felt a ‘calling’ to serve others. I enjoyed volunteering for various activities within the church, including serving as an usher as a teenager. 

The calling changed when I accepted Jesus into my heart as a born-again evangelical Christian. During this, I wrote the goals of attending ORU as Oral Roberts reflected both the evangelical and Methodism in my own life. Knowing my parents were incapable of saving money for retirement and my education, I had to find educational funding and a vocation to help take care of my parents. Enter the United States Military Academy with a “free” education that only cost five years of active duty in the military as an Army officer. 

After three years of service in Germany and active engagement with the Hospitality House (run by the Officer Christian Fellowship) in Mannheim, I knew if I wanted to stay in the Army as a career, I wanted to become a chaplain. Unfortunately, Saddam Hussein had other plans and invaded Kuwait. In response, the US military put a “stop-loss” policy into effect. This policy stopped all transfers, meaning I would not go back to the Armor Officer Advance Course, which would delay any branch transfer to the Chaplain Corps. Being kicked out of the Army for being gay would cancel any future in the military, especially as a chaplain. 

As opposed to the Protestant Chaplains back in Mannheim, who mainly were Evangelicals and encouraged seeking healing from being gay, the Brigade Chaplain in the Persian Gulf, a Roman Catholic priest, is the one that showed the most compassion. He listened without judgment allowing me to openly share my despair after the meeting with the Army Criminal Investigation Division and my forced resignation. He listened as I expressed my desire to kill myself. He asked permission to share that information to get me the help I needed. Since the war was over, the response was swift as they took my weapon, bullets, and bayonet. I returned to Germany as a psychiatric patient, but due to the compassion of an Army Chaplain, I came back alive. Because of his example, I still wanted to help people and even asked an Army Chaplain for a letter of recommendation to attend a seminary. 

In 1992, I could not see becoming a minister while being gay. I did not see myself doing much of anything as I spent six months in deep depression. I liked helping people but could not help myself. Eventually, I had to find work regardless of whether it was fulfilling or not, working various jobs until I saw the possibility of information technology to help companies. My first graduate degree is a Master of Computer Science, Information Systems, where I studied business management and information technology. I spent the next twenty-three years working in information technology, helping companies with the use of technology to improve their business performance. At the same time, I received counseling where I grew to accept my sexuality and started more closely examining the claims of Christianity. I could not understand how the three Abrahamic religions claimed the same patriarch, but each claimed exclusive interpretation of the faith necessary for the same deity. After 9/11, this stood out even more. I eventually determined that I could no longer call myself a Christian. I could no longer accept the claims of the bible as factual or logically coherent with the reality of the universe. But I was able to help my partner with the death of his older brother, father, and mother by being present and listening to him. I also helped my best friend with the death of his father, doing the same. The problem was where I could use my gifts. 

Atheism is a negative statement regarding one belief. It is not sufficient to build a worldview that can help people with our cosmically brief human existence. While listening to some of my favorite atheist podcasts, they reminded me of the Christian boogeyman evangelicals warned about in high school, secular humanism. I studied the humanist manifesto, humanist teachings and saw the excellent work that the group of podcasters was doing. As a group, they ran two charity campaigns called Vulgarity for Charity for the Modest Needs organization. With proof of donation, the donors can request a roast of an individual. The community they built around their podcasts exceeded expectations by raising over $120,000 the first year and then over a quarter of a million dollars the following year. If humanism could do that, the potential to help people is unlimited. Eventually found Bart Campolo’s Humanize Me podcast.  Bart is the son of Tony Campolo, one of my favorite Christian writers who experienced his deconversion at the same time I did. One day I heard him interview the first Humanist Chaplain endorsed by The Humanist Society. He was the head chaplain and associate professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University medical school. He described working together with other faith leaders to help heal wounds and prepare for the next steps at the end of life at the hospice. 

After the election of Donald Trump, I saw a need to help people that were going to be injured by his Presidency. I was burned out working information technology and began looking for how I could help make the world a better place. I did not want to be another podcaster. I found the paper with my original goals from high school and rediscovered the letter from the Army chaplain. I decided to become a humanist celebrant and, hopefully, a humanist chaplain. After looking at the requirements to become a chaplain, I started my blog and began looking for a school that would accept a humanist and gay man. That is when I found Iliff. 

Recently my company announced that the Information technology department was moving to a different model. As a result, several people are facing, the first time in the nine years of me working at the company, to be laid off, including myself. I felt a tremendous need to help everyone through this challenging time, so I set up a LinkedIn group that any people at risk of being laid off could join. This desire and group have increased my interest in workplace chaplaincy. I don’t know where I will serve as a Humanist Chaplain yet, but I am more confident this is the vocation that gives me the greatest fulfillment in life.