My name is Howard Kenyon. Let me tell you how I’ve come to embrace this borderlands journey.
I grew up a Pentecostal PK (preacher’s kid) when neither was cool.
I, nonathletic as they come, was captain of the intercollegiate water ski team that won the nationals.
I lived as a Jersey boy in the heart of Texas.
I earned a Ph.D. in ethics when ethics was a foreign word and high-level academics were suspect among my kind of low-church folk.
I served as a campus minister when church leaders weren’t sure what that meant.
I lived in places where I stood out as an outsider without saying a word.
I worked as a believer among those who said religion is the opiate of the masses.
I partnered as a Pentecostal with ecumenists who thought I swung from the chandeliers.
I served as an advocate for causes alienating friends both red and blue.
More on the downside, I experienced abuse as a child, suffering that pain in isolation, and experiencing PTSD – when abuse was never talked about, pain was something you stuffed, and PTSD wasn’t in the dictionary.
I embraced my depression badge when people said it was safer to say I had suffered burnout.
And I’ve watched loved ones navigating the ultimate of borderlands – that space between now and eternity.
Now actively retired in Oregon, my wife and I are parents of four fine young adults and one fine son-in-law. We love gardening and hiking and, as with hobbits, don’t mind a quiet night at home.
But somehow, I still find myself getting out of my shire to help others trying to navigate the borderlands of our day. As my grandfather once said, “I’m not dead yet.”
Check out my writing here and here.
Check out my coaching here.