Welcome!

Hi there!  My name is Dan and I want to welcome you to my new blog, "My View from the Back Pew".  I hope to post something at least once a week, so please enjoy and know that the views I'm expressing are about how I am seeing my relationship with the Divine, the church, and faith.  A little about me so you have some context (and if you know me, you may know most of this, but read it anyway)...

I grew up a Roman Catholic.  Let's say I was a devout Roman Catholic.  Daily Mass (at Divine Redeemer Hospital in South St. Paul, MN), altar server, lector, etc. all before I left high school.  For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to be a priest.  That stayed with me through high school and followed me to Saint John Vianney college seminary in Saint Paul.  As I grappled with the notion of celibacy, I had to decide if I wanted to be called "Dad" or "Father".  Dad won and I left the seminary.

I finished college with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology (with concentration on sacramental theology) and Classical Languages.  I went to work at a parish in Osseo, MN as Director of Secondary Religious Education.  Not an easy job, wanted kids preparing for Confirmation to learn about their Church and their faith, so I changed the program to actually prepare them for the sacrament.  The program that I replaced seemed to me to be an interpersonal, non-denominational experience.  I thought I did the right thing.  My contract wasn't renewed.  Apparently I didn't.

So I got out of parish ministry.  Got into the lovely world of Electronic Data Processing. That's what we called it back in the day.  Today it's called Information Technology.  Bought a house, had 3 wonderful children, belonged to a wonderful parish, and life was as you would expect in suburban America.  For about 20 years, I even had teenagers into our home preparing them for Confirmation.  There will definitely be a blog about this experience at some point!

In the late 1990s, our pastor moved on and we got another pastor.  The Liturgy Director and he didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things.  So Father Jim asked if I wanted to move into the position and I agreed.  I saw the position as being responsible for training the liturgical ministers, scheduling them, and making sure every Liturgy went off without a hitch.  I was at every Mass every weekend, taking an occasional weekend off to get to the cabin.  It was truly a ministry that I loved.  It was time for a change for me and my career and, coincidentally, Fr. Jim died the weekend before that career change happened.

As I moved in to working for a software company, I was able to travel all over the United States and Canada and began to be exposed to folks from other religious experiences.  And I began to see my faith as a Roman Catholic being buoyed by the faith from other religious traditions and began to see God from different perspectives.  Keep in mind, I grew up in the immediate post-Vatican II church.  So a lot of the misconceptions that Catholics have about people that practice other forms of Christianity and people that don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah and Redeemer are not worthy of heaven.  Yeah, really.  They actually taught that despite the teachings of the Council.  Anyhow, back to the story.

As I began to gain an understanding of other faith traditions, I began to appreciate mine a whole lot more.  And appreciate them as well.  What it did, though, is begin to separate me from my family and the more traditional understanding of the Catholic faith.  I made a bunch of mistakes and ended up growing apart from my wife, moving out of Minnesota to New York City to be closer to my job and travel less, and subsequently divorcing.

I'll share other thoughts on the Liturgy and my views on theological issues in this blog.  It's a person who struggles daily to wrap his head around the Church and God.  

N.B. I no longer attend Mass (although I do participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a regular basis).  You'll see why later!  Stay tuned and thank you!