"It all began about 14 billion years ago when I emerged out of nothingness. It was a really Big Event. Then about 4.5 bya I took on a new form. I was a bit spherical and plump, but not flat, and ready to start circling the neighborhood. About a half billion years after that I woke up to my surroundings and began to copy and replicate and imitate reality around me through movement and gestures. A lot happened after that and I’ll spare you the details, but around 6 million years ago I left home, I left my tribe, and went my own way. I thought I knew it all. Around 500,000 years ago, give or take a few hundred millennia, I found my voice. I began to graffiti my bedroom with posters of animals and such. I started to communicate with my parents who had died and my children who were yet to be born. And about 2,000 years ago I created a band, called the Christians. We started out small, and our leader had some pretty crazy ideas, but we eventually grew and became famous. There’s some interesting stuff about us on the web. Then about 50 years ago, things started getting interesting. I started to rebel and dance to the beat of my own drum. I got married to someone in that band and we called ourselves the Society of Jesus (or, if you want our social media handle - the Jesuits). Then I began to party like it's 1999 and we had a separation. Since then I’ve been teaching the young how to assume nothing and question everything, to know their story and inhabit it. But most of all, I try to encourage them to look beyond themselves and to be open to laboring and giving birth to a sustainable future that offers hope and newness.
I was born and raised in a practicing Catholic family. As a child I was curious about the long and rich history of the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as the rich symbolism it manifested. That led me to study history and languages at Arizona State University. At the same time, I
became conscious of the growing economic disparity in the world and felt called to do something about it. Reading the stories of St. Francis of Assisi, and other saints who lived and worked with the most vulnerable populations, I decided that the best way to respond to that calling was to enter into service through the Church. I entered the Jesuits at age 25 and from there my desires to be with the most vulnerable were met. I worked with oncology and AIDS patients in Hollywood, tutored gang members in east Los Angeles, lived with the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota, worked in a shanty town in Guaymas, Mexico, and lived in an orphanage in Montevideo, Uruguay. I was then sent to Chicago to study theology at the graduate level at Loyola University. I eventually left the Jesuits, started teaching theology at Loyola Academy and finally got my Ph.D. in theology from Loyola University. I taught at Loyola U for a couple of years and at Loyola Academy for 22 years."
