My name is Jim Burklo and I am trying to understand who I am and what I am meant to be and do in this spectacular, precarious, and wondrously strange world. I muse about the human/divine condition quite a bit. So welcome to my "Musings". I would enjoy seeing yours, as well-- whether or not they are in response to my own.
I am ever grateful to be married to the alluring, creative, soulful love of my life, Roberta Maran. I'm grateful and humbled to be the father of Liz, father-in-law of Roman, grandfather of Jacob and Asher James, the step-dad of Nick and Josie, and the step-grandfather of Rumi and Indi, each a fascinating universe of unique proclivities and possibilities. Roberta and I live in Ojai, California. Every day I climb up and down the flanks of its surrounding mountains. Many of my musings begin to congeal on these walks.
My published books: TENDERLY CALLING: An Invitation to the Way of Jesus (2020), MINDFUL CHRISTIANITY (St Johann Press, 2017), DEEPER LOVE (St Johann Press, 2017), SOULJOURN (Patheos Press, 2013), HITCHHIKING TO ALASKA: THE WAY OF SOULFUL SERVICE (St Johann Press, 2013), BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS: Meditations, Poems, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians (St. Johann Press, 2008), and OPEN CHRISTIANITY (St Johann Press, 2000).
I am an ordained United Church of Christ pastor, and serve as the Executive Director of ProgressiveChristiansUniting.org - and through it I am organizing ZOE: Progressive Christian Life on Campus - a national network of students and campus ministries. I am the founder of Souljourning.org, offering resources for families for the nurture of the natural spirituality of young people. I am a preacher and teacher for the progressive Christian movement nationally. For 14 years I served as the Senior Associate Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at the University of Southern California. For ten of these years I was an adjunct professor of public policy at the USC School of Social Work. Before coming to USC, I was pastor of Sausalito Presbyterian Church, and until 2003 I was the minister of College Heights United Church of Christ in San Mateo, and also the ecumenical Protestant campus minister at Stanford University. Before these jobs, until 1993, I was the lead organizer and then the executive director of the Urban Ministry of Palo Alto (now part of LifeMoves Inc), an interfaith agency serving homeless people. I graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary in Marin County, CA (1979). My undergraduate degree was from the University of California, Riverside. At birth I lived in Los Gatos, CA, grew up in Columbiana, a small town in Ohio, and went to high school in Santa Cruz, CA.
The older I get, the more I know about how little I know. I'm increasingly giddy in the face of it all. Why does my heart ache with joy when red-orange sunlight sears the high cliffs of Topa Topa? How dare I tell my wife that I love her, when I barely comprehend the sacred mystery between us? Who am I to preach and write about the divine, when I hardly fathom what it is to be human? Bear with me, believe with me, hope with me, endure with me as we muse about it together....