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Vocational Autobiography

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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 tak
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Deconstruction of my Christianity - My theological Anthropology

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As I discussed in  Age 24 1989  and  End of the Dream , it was difficult for me to re-type the original documents. It was difficult for many reasons. Besides the obvious grammar and spelling issues (please remember my degrees are in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, not English Literature), it was more difficult to revisit some of the worst depression I have ever experienced. This is my Theological Anthropology as written for one of my courses.  My theological anthropology is complex and brings up complicated emotions. I grew up in Southern Colorado initially on a farm south of Monte Vista. Growing up, Bowen Community United Methodist Church twelve miles south of Monte Vista represented my family's spiritual home, including paternal grandparents, and my father's older sister and family. After we lost both my grandparents and my family's farms shortly after my grandfather's death, we moved north of Monte Vista. We started to attend the Monte Vista United Met
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#Juneteenth #Listen2BlackVoices

While I applaud Facebook’s encouraging people to acknowledge #Juneteenth and #LiftBlackVoices , but it misses a couple of critical points, in my opinion, as a white gay male. The first point is the lack of knowledge due to the whitewashing of history in the United States educational system. Not having teaching around the meaning of Juneteenth #Juneteenth and the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in the majority of US history courses is a perfect example of the systematic and institutional racism.  While it is essential during the current unrest over police brutality against people of color to lift the black voices #LiftBlackVoices around police brutality and the lived experience of African-Americans in the US, I think it is more important to listen to the black voices #Listen2BlackVoices . Lifting marginalized voices is the first part; we will not have equality and justice until the people in power and those who put those people in control demand “We The People” start listening to the m
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MDiv Essay

Kenneth Mark Landes After the shock of the 2016 presidential election, I started to look for a way in which I could continue to help our divided country and those people impacted by the election of Donald Trump and a Republican majority in Congress. As part of my attempt to get my military discharge upgraded before my 30th Class Reunion at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2017, I found a  letter  that was written twenty-five years earlier from an Army Chaplain supporting my attending a theological seminary. This renewed interest in my becoming a chaplain but with a twist as I no longer believe in the supernatural and am a Secular Humanist. This realization appeared to be the best way to help myself and others in dealing with the sense of betrayal of the freedoms that we as Americans hold dear. Despite my lack of belief, I still feel like I can support the spiritual needs of a diverse group of believers, as I grew up as a believing member of the United Methodist
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The Journey Continues

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I have some good news after having to put my goal on hold for a year that I have started my Masters of Divinity degree Iliff School of Theology. With a great assist from two of my classmates from West Point and the Humanist Chaplain of the University of Cincinnati, I was accepted as a full-time student while also working full-time. We are currently in the fifth week of the fall quarter which takes place on location in Denver Colorado where Iliff is located. There are several reasons why I applied specifically to Iliff but the most important is the combination of distance and on-site learning called the Journey Program. This is an intensive week of school work but also the first time that I am getting to meet my fellow first-year Journey classmates and two-course classmates.  I am in two theological courses and the Journey Beginnings course. The two theological courses are Theological Education in the Digital Age and Identity, Power & Vocation in Community. As the second cou
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Why I marched in the World Pride 2019 Parade in New York City.

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On the train from NJ to NYC I was a four-year-old tow-headed boy in a small town in Southwestern town in Colorado when the vibrant LGBTQA+ community in Greenwich Village lead by heroes like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson among other fought back against yet another police raid of the Stonewall Inn at the end of June 1969. Little did I know the impact this event would have on the movement that started in the 1950s by groups like Harry Hay’s Mattachine Society, One, Inc,, and Daughters of Bilitis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots ) or on myself.  
 In 1991 I was forced to resign my commission as an Army Officer while serving in Kuwait in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm as a Division Liaison Officer with the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Armored Division after confiding to an individual that I was gay. This was 4 years after my graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point where I first began to understand that I was gay and what that mea
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September - Discharge, Training & 30th Class Reunion

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Jeffery Voigt and Unofficial Best Beard Class of 1987 30th Reunion Photo courtesy of Jeffery Voigt The month of September was a busy time for me so I was not able to post. I wanted to share what happened.  I found most of the documentation I needed to request my discharge be upgraded. I scanned in all of the documentation and sent it off to the Outserve/SLDN (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network) in hopes that they could help me. Included were the letters of recommendations from the Brigade Commander, Deputy Brigade Commander and Division Commander of the unit that I was attached too during the Persian Gulf War. It was after the fighting over that my discharge was initiated.   I contacted the former Deputy Brigade Commander and asked him if he would be willing to update his recommendation from General to Honorable Discharge . He is now a retired 4-star General and it is my hope is that his recommendation would carry some weight with the review board. Gratefully he agreed
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