Teachers, Mentors, and Just Plain Saints Who Have Helped Me Along The Way
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati
Swami Ramdas of Kanhangad
Baba Ramdas
Martin Luther King, Jr
Christopher Isherwood
Mahatma Gandhi
Alice Miller
Anne Tyler
Annie Dillard
Rosemary Radford Reuther
Gary Pence
Alan Jones
John Auer
Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Amy-Jill Levine
Melvin Woodworth
Karla Fredericksen
Hal Perry
David Tinney
Jim Wallis
Theodora Kroeber
Dennis Linn
Sheila Fabricant Linn
Matthew Linn
Robert Bliss Cahall
Gladys Phelps Cahall
Mary Oliver
Catherine Sprietsma-Adler
Sant Keshavadas
Sri Ramakrishna
Meher Baba
Anne Lamott
Rachel Held Evans
Jeff Chu
Nadia Bolz-Weber
Pema Chodron
Ramana Maharshi
Walter Wink
John Dominic Crossan
Marcus Borg
Michael Morwood
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai
Raymond TeKorako Ruka
The Dalai Lama
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Thich Nhat Hanh
Wendell Berry
James Baldwin
Aldous Huxley
Ursula K. LeGuin
Brené Brown
Kate Bowler
Sarah Bessey
Natalie Goldberg
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Jesus of Nazareth
Mother Teresa
Bette Nelson
John Mosher
Dale Buchanan
Bry Hovey, Jr
Alan Gibbs
Ida Kirkwood
Rita Nakashima Brock
Valerie Saiving
Rudolf Otto
Meister Eckhardt
Alan Watts
Allen Ginsberg
Bob Dylan
All my birth brothers
Joanne Carlson Brown
Rebecca Parker
Frances “Judge” Meyers
Cornel West
Shlomo Carlebach
Anne Wilson Schaef
Frances Lee
Hafiz
Daniel Zizza
Tomoko Seki
Bonnie Simmons
Derk Richardson
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It’s a gratitude list for some of those who have helped me to find my way. Plus all those beloved friends and family members and fellow pastors and work mentors whom I cannot list for fear of whom I might leave out. And all those still awaiting me ahead. Perhaps this is another way of using the phrase, "It takes a village"?