Sunday, January 28, is the date on which my father would have turned 100. He was 96 when he passed away in May of 2020. Dad died during the early days of Covid. My last visit was two months before the pandemic.  Being with him at the time of his death was not possible. We were also unable to have a memorial service. My brother and his family live a couple of hours away, and were able to be at the graveside where they had a small ceremony.

There was no real closure for me. A memorial service would have been packed. Dad ministered in Grayson, Kentucky for 22 years. He was loved in that town, as well as in Lexington, where my parents lived in retirement for 31 years.

A few years before he passed, Dad told me how his sister, Virginia, would tell everyone, “My kid brother is going to be a preacher.” The decision had been made for him early in life. Fortunately, he was amenable to it. He was a natural pastor, the kind that comes out of central casting.

My father attended Kentucky Christian College, my alma mater. He met my mother there and they were married shortly after graduation. Dad’s first ministry was in Advance, Indiana, where he served while he worked on a master’s degree at Butler School of Religion. He moved to Huntington, West Virginia and served a church there for seven years. That is where I was born.

We moved to Akron, Ohio in the fall of 1955, and for the next twelve years my father pastored at the West Akron Church of Christ, a healthy, growing congregation. During his ministry the church built a new building, and grew to an attendance of about 350. During those years he joined the board of Kentucky Christian College, served on the Continuation Committee of the North American Christian Convention, and served as the dean of senior high camp at Round Lake Christian Assembly.

In January of 1967, my father accepted a new ministry at my mother’s home church, First Church of Christ in Grayson, Kentucky. He served there for 22 years, until he retired on his 65th birthday in 1989.

Outside of Grayson, Dad was not well-known. He was not a great preacher, but he was a wonderful pastor. He loved everyone. When people showed up in his life, whether it be a Sunday worship service or a chance encounter at Rupert’s Department Store, Dad always looked like he had been expecting them. He warmly greeted everyone and had a great interest in their lives, whether they were highway construction workers, or the superintendent of schools.

A lot of the confidence I have gained began in my childhood home, where my father delighted in me. Whether it was a band concert in the 9th grade, or the first time I preached at the North American Christian Convention, Dad was in the audience, beaming. When I became a disc jockey at the radio station in town, Dad listened all the time, and came to the station often to watch me spin vinyl and read the news straight off the AP wire.

When I was doing play-by-play or color at basketball games, Dad listened to the broadcast from beginning to end, and when I got home, encouraged me. As far as he was concerned, I was a sure successor to the legendary University of Kentucky broadcaster, Cawood Ledford.

Long after I’d graduated from college and moved away, Dad became the announcer for the local high school’s basketball games. They gave him a jacket with “Voice of the Raiders” embroidered on the front chest pocket. He proudly wore that jacket for the rest of his life.

When I became the editor-at-large of the weekly magazine of our denomination, the Christian Standard, Dad reminded me that it had been published since 1866, and that there had been only a handful of editors. There was a part of me that took that part-time job because I knew it would please my father.

I write about the actions of his life and the places in which he served because I never knew much about the interior life of my father. He was very private. He did not share his deepest self with anyone. You had to read between the lines to determine the state of his soul. In that regard we were polar opposites. I used to have a plaque in my bedroom that said, “It’s all right to have an unexpressed thought.” Dad did not need that plaque.

Dad was always open to conversations about politics or theology. I’d have delightful conversations with him, as long as the topic was something “out there.” When he did open up more intimately and transparently, it was usually with me. I considered that quite an honor. I never knew when he would grace me with words from his soul. It might be on a plane to the North American Christian Convention, or driving to the grocery store on Long Island, or visiting me at the radio station. I treasured those moments and began to think of them as having won the intimacy lottery, and wonder what I might  do that would hasten the return of those times of deep conversation.

My dad was always on the move. He walked miles, intuitively embodying solvitur ambulando, “It is solved by walking.” I do understand that propensity. I run at least six days a week for at least 45 minutes. Most weeks I run seven days. I edit and memorize sermons or keynote speeches while running. Walking and running get your brain firing neurons across both hemispheres, which is a good thing.

A lot of memories have been surfacing lately as I think about Dad’s one-hundredth birthday. Wrestling on the floor after we’d had popcorn, which we did every Thursday evening. Riding in the car with him anywhere, because that was when he was most inclined to talk. Thoroughly enjoying his homemade donuts, delicious for exactly six hours until magically turning into door stops in hour seven. Still, I happily emptied the pan in which those hard as a rock donuts were stored. Telling stories at bedtime about cowboys Jim and Jiggles. Every story ended with Jiggles singing Home on the Range. Dad had a beautiful voice, but Jiggles did not. I loved the way he sang that song.

When Dad was with me he was rarely distracted. For me, he was present. What that did for my self-esteem was profoundly important. He loved my singing, my preaching, my broadcast work, my writing skills, and my leaderships. Dad loved me and I always knew it. Not many people receive that kind of adoration from their father. I shall be eternally grateful for his steadfast love.

My first TED Talk tells the story of the first time I visited with my parents after I had transitioned. I tell the story all the time. I cannot tell it without crying, because it was a moment of profound love, the kind that makes the world go round. I am glad millions of people have heard it.

I miss my father. The world is a better place because he was in it. His legacy was one of warmth. He warmed hearts with lasting effect. Mention his name and all who knew him will smile. Often they will say what I always knew to be true. “Ah yes, Dave Williams, the epitome of a gentleman.”

And so it goes.

Back in the 80s I read Ernest Becker’s masterful 1973 book, The Denial of Death. In fact, I was reading the book while the New York Mets were winning Game Six of the 1986 World Series, one of the most astonishing comebacks in the history of Major League Baseball. Most agree that the book stands the test of time, as does the game.

In his book Becker devoted many pages to the work of Otto Rank, a protege of Sigmund Freud. Rank’s work doesn’t have quite the hold it did fifty years ago, but one of his books, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, is still quite helpful. Rank collected over 70 examples of hero myths and identified five common elements:

1. An infant is born to noble or divine parents or is the child of a deity and an earthly maiden. His or her origin is preceded by difficulties in the parents or within their community.
2. The extraordinary signs attending the birth of the infant arouses anxiety in the ruling king or the infant’s father, who set out to kill or banish him.
3. The infant is exposed to die, or surrendered to the sea in a basket, or is sent away or escapes because of the intervention of benevolent forces.
4. The infant is rescued, sometimes by animals or a humble woman or a fisherman, and is brought up in another land.
5. The hero, now a young man, returns to either overthrow the father or renew the community through his leadership.

In the Denial of Death, Becker wrote about the universal call toward heroism that is contained in these myths, a call that is innate to our species. Joseph Campbell popularized these elements in his definition of the Hero’s Journey.

As Campbell described the Hero’s Journey, an ordinary citizen is called onto an extraordinary journey onto the road of trials. Initially she rejects the call because hey, it’s a road of trials! But now she’s miserable because she knows she has been called and has rejected the call. I’ve been there more than once in my life. You’d think one would learn, right?

In the midst of misery because of a lack of courage to answer the call onto the Hero’s Journey, a spiritual advisor comes into her life and gives her the courage to answer the call. It is always a Yoda type figure, someone with great wisdom gained through adversity. The wisdom figure gives the hero the courage to answer the call onto the road of trials and sure enough, it’s a road of trials. No surprise there. But now it gets worse. She finds herself in a deep, dark cave, totally lost.

It is Dante at the beginning of the Divine Comedy. “In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost.” It is Shakespeare’s MacBeth. “Life is but a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” It is John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul.

You are completely and utterly lost, but that is when you realize it is all right, because lost is a place too. My favorite television show of all time was the show Lost. The characters, marooned and time-traveling on a mysterious island somewhere in the Pacific, spent six seasons coming to grips with and accepting their lot as one of those among the many who are lost.

As the seasons progressed they came to peace with their time in the place called lost, and that is when they begin to discern a path forward. The final season brought redemption to each of the characters, with the protagonist (Jack, if you are a Lost fan) being the last to find his way.

The show was rather spiritual, and in the final analysis, Christian. Carlton Kuse, one of the two show runners (Damon Lindelof was the other) is a Catholic. The final season gave an interesting spin to the notion of purgatory. If you’ve read my memoir, you know the show played a significant part in my decision to transition genders.

Spending time in the place called lost is an important part of the Hero’s Journey. After you learn the lessons that can only be learned in that difficult place, you finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this time it is not an oncoming train. You are back on the ordinary road of trials, which feels like nothing given what you’ve gone through.

This is when you realize your destination has never been the Holy Grail. It has always been to bring back the Holy Grail, once found, and gift it to those from whom you have departed. The Hero’s Journey is at the same time all about you, and not all about you.

After returning with the offering there may or may not be another journey to which the hero is called. For Odysseus, after his journey across the sea his final call took him inland, so far from the sea that no one knew what an oar was. Only after he returned from that journey was he free to move into “sleek old age.”

It does not feel like I am free to move into sleek old age. I am still in the midst of this present journey. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve been on since I woke up to the fact that a life that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

I am yet again in the place called lost, which is all right, because, well, it has to be. There is no use fighting against it. I must live into it, and the lessons it is trying to bestow on my ever resistant soul.

The current themes of my days are meaning, wisdom, love, and on off days, ennui and acedia. You know, the little stuff. At this age there are no throw away experiences. Everything counts. You have no idea the number of your days, and you best approach each with great seriousness of purpose.

Some significant existential realities occupy my time. The closing of the church is having a bigger emotional impact, now that the acute phase is complete. The church has proven to be the single biggest area in which my transition has put me at a disadvantage. A lot of obstacles were placed on the path that seem to have been related to nothing other than lack of appreciation of my knowledge about what it takes to create a growing church.

In sixty years as a male, I never faced such obstacles. For all thirty-five of the years I directed a church planting ministry, that ministry had a steady upward trajectory, uninterrupted. Who knew changing genders would render one untrustworthy, because you used to be a man and therefore all of your initiatives must have been stained by the patriarchy? I am aware of the mistakes I made, and they were many. I have also learned that when you do not have the authority of the CEO, it is amazing what a handful of contrarians can do to stop momentum. The whole experience was a lesson in navigating through relative powerlessness.

Those with whom I worked might have different perspectives. You can ask them if you like. For me, I am sure grace will inform a healthier perspective over time.

I was watching a movie last night in which the protagonist was lamenting the pain that accompanies the loss of community and one’s legacy. Just the previous night I had turned to the pages of the magazine I used to serve as editor-at-large. I look at it occasionally to see what is happening and who has passed on. For sixty years it was my world. It does not look to me like the denomination is doing very well, especially its educational institutions. I was surprised how saddened I was. This is the denomination that discarded me faster than the hope one harbors every spring for the hapless New York Mets, yet I still care about the denomination’s health. Whether one’s Christian denomination or baseball, loyalty runs deep through these bones. With a few exceptions, it has not been reciprocated.

The biggest problem of that is the loss of community and legacy. It is hard to feel good about the work I did over those 35 years, because today most of those churches would never allow me through their doors. And now the one I helped to start is gone. There must be a lesson there somewhere.

But it’s -11 degrees outside and snowing, and I complain too much.

I am still able to observe life and make observations that seem to be helpful to others. I mean, you are reading this post, right? And I still get to rub shoulders with really smart people and receive a constant stream of new, fascinating information. And if I can wait a couple of days until it is 50 degrees again and go running in the ever-present Colorado sunshine, all manner of things shall once again be well.

And so it goes.

This April I will finish my first term as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Lyons, Colorado. I entered office not sure of the difference between an ordinance and a resolution. I knew Lyons was a statutory town, but I did not know there were four other types of municipalities in the state. About 2,250 people live in the 1.2 square miles of Lyons. Our town was incorporated in 1891.

I’ve learned much during  my first two years of government service. I have a great respect for our town administrator and employees, as well as the elected officials with whom I serve. I find it an honor to serve with our mayor, Hollie Rogan. She has led with efficiency, thoughtfulness, and a keen eye for what really matters. I hope I am able to serve with her for another two years.

Most of the time, our six trustee members have been on the same page as the mayor. We are focused on affordable housing, wildfire mitigation, and finding sources of revenue that do not unduly tax the members of our community. People value the quality of life they experience in Lyons, and love the supportive community that has been born of adversity, whether the devastating thousand-year flood in 2013, or wildfires north and south of town in 2020.

I have spent most of my life working in the religious non-profit world. For 35 years I was CEO and chair of a large and growing New York based non-profit.  I also taught as adjunct faculty or as a visiting instructor at seven colleges and seminaries. I have worked in the broadcasting world as an announcer at two radio stations and one television network. I coach with TEDxMileHigh and volunteer with TED. I’ve had the honor of speaking for both. I served as an editor-at-large for a publishing company, and published books with that company and two others. I have worked in the corporate world, and have served on the boards of more non-profits than I can count. But until two years ago, I had never worked in government.

I read everything I can about  finding good work and creative meaning as you progress through the decades of life. Now I focus my attention on what many call an “encore life.” An encore life is when the world considers you as retired from your “career” and embarking on a new journey. I chose to run for public office two years ago because I wanted to serve my community, and work in an area in which I had not worked before.

In the non-profit world, I was accustomed to board meetings that lasted less than two hours. Much of the time I was chairing those meetings. That is not the case with town board meetings. Between workshops before the meetings and the board meetings themselves, it is not unusual to be at town hall for four hours or longer on a Monday evening. All of it starts at 5:30 pm, after our board members have already finished their regular work day.

In a town the size of Lyons, we do not spend our time flying at 30,000 feet. We fly at 300 feet, debating the merits of issues as minute as whether or not to use bollards to separate traffic from pedestrians on Railroad Avenue after turning it into a one-way street, or the width of a pedestrian path behind a major highway. I have enjoyed my service on the town board more than I anticipated. It’s a lot of work, but you know you are making a difference at a local level.

There has been virtually no pushback about  being a transgender person. In fact, when I mentioned that I was planning to run again and wondered whether or not my gender identity would be an issue, our mayor and the two board members I was talking with said, “Oh that’s right, we always forget you’re trans.” None of us expect my gender  to be an issue this election either. If I am not reelected, it will likely be because folks do not like how I voted, not because of my gender.

I love living in Lyons, and take seriously my responsibility to help make our town an even better place in which to live. Now that I have learned the ropes of the job, I hope to be even more effective over the next two years.

An ancillary benefit of my service is the chance to add government service to the long list of ways in which I have served over the past fifty plus years. When it is all said and done, I’m probably most comfortable in the non-profit world. That is where I’ve spent most of my time. I spent 35 years with one non-profit, 25 as chair and CEO. After 35 years of service, I was gone seven days after coming out as transgender. Nothing about that seems strange if you live within the bubble of evangelicalism. If you are from outside of that insular bubble, you simply cannot believe something like that can still happen in the 21st century. It still does, and regularly, as a matter of fact.

If I’m not elected to the Board of Trustees, will I be disappointed? Sure. I’ve worked hard over the last two years to serve well. But after losing all of my jobs within a week just ten short years ago, not being elected to office would be far down the list of life’s disappointments.

And so it goes.