Berkley Center

John: If I tell people that I'm a Reverend, they have a certain response. If I tell people that I have a PhD and teach at the university, they have a different response. And if I tell people that I'm a garbage man, they have yet a different response.But if I put all three together, people either laugh or they look at me like I'm crazy, which is the perfect response for me. The blog is really about my experience, primarily as a garbage hauler in St. Paul and the ways in which I've found sort of spiritual insight, lessons about life, or just curious, quirky things about the citizens of St. Paul and our neighbors.

Sonia: Can you be more specific and talk about what some of those things that you've learned have been?

John: One of the main things that I've learned is what a disposable society we live in. Our economy is built on it, and we all participate in it. But it's messy, dirty, often vile, vile work. There's something important about that. To me, it connects with those spiritual traditions, not just in my own tradition, but in other traditions where people beg, people live on the streets, people choose a life of simplicity and menial work as a kind of spiritual practice. And that's a huge part of why I do it. So I wear a white collar on Sunday and a blue collar on Monday.

Sonia: One thing that I think is really beautiful about your story is that when we think of trash haulers in this society, one would not expect to hear words like, "I'm using this as my spiritual practice". this is giving me a lot of metaphors about life in general. And you also have this other profession as a pastor. And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how this grounds you spiritually and then how your work between pastoring and trash hauling relates to one another and how do they inform each other?

John: Well, they certainly do. Our sense of sort of being here in the world often has so much to do with our roles. We get caught up in what other people think of us and how other people regard us. And when we gain a sense of power in the world that way, we gain a sense of self in the world. It's important, I think, to do things that sort of strip away that sort of mode of self-identity. And for some, it could be meditation. For some, it could just be stillness. But for me, there's nothing that does it like going from say preaching and presiding at a church service on Sunday to putting on this dirty shirt and being a garbage man and solidarity, too, with people who do the very menial jobs that we all depend upon.