About
John Cheyenne Wilbur graduated in 1975 from Oberlin College with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Communications, and in 1979 from Princeton Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister and called as an Assistant Minister to the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento, California. His title was Pastor of Hunger Ministries.
While at Princeton, The New York Times published an opinion piece of his called “Does Princeton Seminary Need a Shot of the Secular?” This led to an invitation from Martin Arnold, Managing Editor of The New York Times Magazine to write an extended piece for the magazine. After leaving Westminster Church, he wrote a column for The Sacramento Union called “Worship Watch” reviewing worship services.
He stepped off the grid to pursue writing full time and migrated up to Port Townsend, WA. Here he was introduced to the great outdoors – originally hailing from the New York City area – and the alternative lifestyle. He pierced his ear, grew out his hair, worked in a collective restaurant, wrote his first book called The Tit Man and continued “Worship Watch” with The Port Townsend Leader.
Picking apples in the Okanogan Valley, he squirreled some extra cash and headed to the Big Island, Hawaii. There he continued off the grid, living in a coffee shack, managing a coffee house and writing for West Hawaii Today as an arts critic at large.
He returned to the Mainland and eventually settled in Seattle, then Los Angeles acting (www.IMBD.com/CheyenneWilbur).
Grace Notes is his first published book, a 10-year project.
OK. That’s the typical narrative about accomplishments, blah, blah, blah. Now let’s talk about another “About.”
I lost the will to live when I was 18, spiritually hemorrhaging with no idea how to stanch the bleeding. As a first semester freshman at Lake Forest College, I awoke each morning, or rather, opened my eyes each morning after struggling through the night in twilight consciousness, with rims of darkness encircling my gaze. I zombied through classes, all the while wrestling with an inner voice tormenting me: something wrong, something wrong.
Time threatened. Each day challenged: another eternity. How would I make it through this morning, this hour, this minute? Its crawling pace tortured. My will to live nosedived. I couldn’t keep going like this. Worse, I didn’t have a clue how to fix it.
The Hail Mary solution? Get back to my high school girlfriend.
It didn’t work.
In my childhood bedroom, home on Thanksgiving break, while the rest of the house slept, on my knees, I pleaded to a God I didn’t believe in. He was my Hail Mary Take Two.
A warmth swaddled me. I climbed into bed and slept for the first time in months.
In the morning, a fledgling belief had sprouted. I returned to college, albeit a different one, Oberlin College, and survived the year. My faith, fragile at first, grew stronger day by day, and so too did my mental health.
After graduating, I entered Princeton Theological Seminary. Faith was a matter of life and death.
Ironically, I graduated with a degree but little faith.
At my first church, I started therapy. It was like being strapped into an amusement park ride with no way to get off, at once terrifying and exhilarating. Groping in the darkness of the unconscious, I grabbed scraps, yanked them into the conscious realm and tried to make sense of them.
I kept a dream journal. I kept a regular journal. I behaved erratically, got into fist fights, went through an abortion, smoked cigarets, snorted cocaine, walked incessantly. All the while I maintained my job, pastor of Hunger Ministries, feeding the homeless, starting a certified farmers’ market in the inner city and assisting in Sunday worship praying I wouldn’t shit my pants.
My shadow was astir. I realized my family was not the normal one I had made it out to be. In fact, there were many secrets, secrets that I possessed but wouldn’t let myself know. I had to steal them.
I learned my father violated me and my mother was emotionally absent. And eventually, I accepted the term “sexually abused” as part of my identity.
While writing a letter to my mom, and listening to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, I had a vision of God’s hand reaching down to me and his voice asking, “How long will you wait to receive my love?” Yes, my faith was getting stronger.
Ironically, I quit ministry and set off to get closer to God. I journeyed to Port Townsend, Washington. I pursued writing, all the while discovering the erotic God. And I don’t mean that in a sexual way, though that education was included, but the universal Christ (see Richard Rohr’s, The Universal Christ) with my body. Coming from the New York metropolitan area, my senses were dominated by man-made products. Now I saw mountains, smelled fresh air, touched morning dew, heard the infinite silence, tasted oatmeal blueberry muffins fresh out of the collective restaurant oven I worked at. My body knitted itself into the fabric of Nature. What a joy!
My faith grew; my communion with God became mystical.
On the first Sunday of Lent, while at church, I saw Jesus. My first instinct was to run away. Then I thought, why bother? The jig’s up. He knows who I am, and, broken parts and all, he loves me unconditionally. I said yes to Jesus Christ.
Then I went to Jerusalem for Christmas at God’s invitation. I encountered miracles that blasted my intellectual skepticism once and for all. Ask me about them sometime.
30 some years later, my faith journey continues: it’s not a destination; it’s always a journey. And I know my place in the world.