This month, Karen Moore, Jason Merritt, Kaitlin Pabo-Eulberg, and Nick Pabo-Eulberg joined our community in membership. In the coming weeks, we will be introducing each of them in greater depth. This week, we'd like you to meet... Jason Merritt!
Jason grew up in Detroit and moved to Oregon 15 years ago. Jason wasn't raised in a religious tradition, but he got interested in paganism and Buddhism in his teens, particularly the Thai Theravada Forest tradition of Buddhism. After developing an interest in Christian monastic and contemplative traditions, he got baptized and confirmed at St. Philip Neri. Then he got drawn to Reconciling in Christ Lutheran churches. Jason says, "I consider myself a perennialist, finding the common thread of religion to be what Robin Dunbar calls the 'mystical engagement with the transcendent.'"
Jason has a girlfriend, Rebecca, and a four-year-old cat named Roo. He works as a medical assistant at an internal medicine clinic. He likes reading, writing, hiking, and binging fantasy and sci-fi shows. His guilty pleasures are imperial stouts, reality TV shows, and Buzzfeed quizzes. He would love to go to Finland; India; or the Holy Land. If money were no object, he would study and write about comparative religion to build more understanding. He is energized by a good homily and coffee!
Jason's book recommendations: Without Buddha I Could not be Christian by Paul Knitter; Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg; The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley; A History of God by Karen Armstrong; Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah; The Cloud of Unknowing; and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
What brought him to Spirit of Grace: After St. Philip Neri, Jason began attending Central Lutheran and St. Andrew Lutheran. Then he found Spirit of Grace on the internet and was intrigued by the ecumenical description. It sounded right up his alley. He was familiar with Pastor Robyn from visiting St. Andrew. He finds Spirit of Grace to be warm and welcoming and in line with the universality of Christ and the open arms of the church in the New Testament. He also likes the balanced focus on the active and contemplative aspects of Christian spiritual life.
I also had the chance to catch up with my friend Andrew. I hung out with his brother last Saturday after the retreat at Mt. Angel, sharing some of the beer I got for him at Benedictine Brewery. Andrew and I caught up over a beer and burger from Monster Smash. He really loves that place, and Belmont Station usually has some good stuff on tap, so it made for the perfect meeting spot. They're both going through a rough time, but it was nice to see them both and reconnect. One of the things we talked about is how difficult it is for us to be social, but also how bad it can be when we get too isolated and spiral into dark and unhealthy places. Human interaction can be healing. We all have some level of brokenness, and communion with one another is how we find our way through. I told him to reach out whenever he needed. Which reminds me that I also promised Barbara that I'd call her and would catch up with her sometime too. I'll definitely have to keep that promise.
But for now, I'm just sitting here, listening to a CD that Andrew gave me of his most recent release from his analog, industrial synth project XLV. I'm really enjoying it.
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