Meet Darren....             or     go back to my home page...

Biographical facts:

Darren…

is male, and currently 31 years old and single.

graduated from Chandler High School, Chandler, Arizona, class of ’87.

went to DeVry Institute and Arizona State University while in undergrad

received a BS in Business Administration in 1993, University of Phoenix.

received a Master of Divinity in 1997, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.

was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1997.

is currently attached to the East Washington / Idaho Synod

is currently on Leave from Call (not engaged in ordained ministry at the moment.)

currently living at his parents’ home, trying to help aging parents.

looking for work in ordained ministry, or social service, in the Arizona area.

is more interested in non-biographical stories than biographical facts (his own and others.)

Non-biographical stuff:

            Now that I got that stuff out of the way….  I like most people in the world, and try to love everybody (even those I don’t like) a little bit.  Sure, people will lie, cheat, hurt (generally sin,) but all sinners are also saints, usually at the same time, and thus worth knowing and loving.  I like Robert Heinlein’s definition of love (paraphrased,) “Love is a condition where the welfare of someone or something is placed above one’s own.”

Yes, I am a Christian, Lutheran, and ordained.  You can address me as Reverend if you want to, should we meet professionally.  (I like “Pastor,” but it’s more appropriate to somebody who’s under a Letter of Call, and I’m on leave right now.)  But I don’t like being revered or reverenced, because that’s placing me on a pedastal.  I ain’t nothing much, but my ultimate “boss” is.  J  So, just calling me “Darren” is fine, and I like “Rev” best.

When people decide that they know who I am based on my title, my job, or the things I do or don’t do in life, I figure that person has a long way to grow.  (As do I, always….)  I believe what a person is “being” is far more important than what he or she “does,” and what somebody does is always either based in what they’re being, or what he or she really wants to be.

            I’m passionate about many things, but don’t exhibit it when I feel uncomfortable.  I’m actually quite introverted and shy, but I like meeting other people and seeing where friendship might take us.  In this I find myself more extroverted.

            I’m also a professional worrywart.  It’s a side effect of caring about others.  What others think about me is important, as I see that as much a part of who I am as my own being.  I thus take most things extremely personally, even things I know I’m not responsible for.  In return, though, I try to care about how others feel and think a little more than I do about myself.  (And in the interims try to take life with more humor and less seriousness than I really do.)

I have mood swings, and enjoy having them.  It’s as much a function of who I am, and what my soul is, as any bodily chemistry that occurs.  I’m not against healthcare, mental or physical – it’s a better world that has Doctors in it.  Sometimes, though, I believe that healthcare operates too much on looking at deficits, rather than looking at what’s going well in a person’s life.  What medicine does not know about the soul sometimes is staggering.  And, after all, who plans on living eternally on this earth?  None of us lives forever here.

While many of us, and I myself, wear our masks in life (be they comedy, tragedy, or detachment,) I try to wear as few as possible.  It’s hard for us all to be who we really are, and to be who we want to be.  (With thanks to God and all the great poets, musicians, scholars, and sages who give up who they are for others for being able to hold up a mirror to life.)

Some pastoral “secrets”…

If you’ve never had a clergyperson as a close personal friend, let me assure you that it’s not always a cakewalk.  In fact, being just who you are is more difficult when you’re ordained.  Almost every person you meet has different expectations of what a “Reverend,” “Pastor,” “Priest,” “Rabbi,” or, “Imam,” should be.  Sometimes those differences get to be so huge that there isn’t any respect for the person behind the office.  And sometimes the differences within those titles are large enough that there’s no respect for the office that a person’s been ordained into.

Many people expect an ordained minister to be something better than human, or the example of a perfect life of faith.  I usually don’t like any such person, Christian or not, for they expect the impossible.  I only expect faith to come first in my life, and for my actions to flow forth from my faith, and then ask others to be and do the same.  (And “faith” is never commanded:  it just is.  I use faith as a term for an individual's or group's understanding of the universe inside and outside of itself...  "Faith is belief seeking understanding," is how another theologian once put it. )

Many of my colleagues have shared personal stories with me.  Almost universally, we have our own doubts, fears, and worries, too.  The only thing we do that’s any different is try to rise above them, use them, or conceal them.  We do this for others’ sake, long enough to see where faith exists, trust in it, and help others to see their own faith and trust.  This is never “easy,” any more than it may be for you to have faith.  This is where being "called" or "compelled" fits into  a person's worldview.  I’ve found, in my life, faith and trust is the only way to help others.

We, as clergy,  also regularly lay our hearts and souls on the line for people who may or may not understand what we’re being and doing.  A poetic description of this might be, "We voluntarily enter others' own personal hells to try to bring them back to life."  Sometimes, in the course of doing this, your heart is broken.  And, once in a while, you don’t know who beyond God to turn to for help.  Yet, since God exists as a very real being for me, that's where my own healing ultimately comes from.  And sometimes that's all I need.  My soul?  Can't say that's its' ever been injured beyond repair shown in the love of others for me.  All of this happens to clergy beyond simply being around at worship times and "running" the church (Eugene Peterson's term.)

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