But, What Are You?
I remember the exact moment when I went from saying, “I write,” to “I am a writer.” For me there was big gap between what I was doing and the title I gave myself. Strangely enough it was in 2011 twenty-five years after my first published work.
Recently, a friend tried to convince that I was a songwriter. She asked me, “How many songs have you written?” I sheepishly admitted that I had written five or six songs over the last three decades. She pointed out the obvious: “You have written songs, therefore, you are a songwriter!” She was technically correct. However, I am far from calling myself a songwriter. I am not sure what threshold I will need to cross to claim that title, but I can tell you it’s somewhere far beyond the songs that show up every few years or so.
Last week I changed the title below my name on my blog from “Religious Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim” to “Cultural Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim.” I had been thinking about the shift for a few weeks. The former title was likely the product of having just emerged from working as an executive in a regional church system. So much of my innovation work was tied to the religious institution that I was serving.
Sacred and secular together
As I shift toward this work that is focused on cultivating a pilgrimage culture, I could feel that the title “religious innovator” was feeling too restrictive. This was also prompted by one of my readers who suggested that blogs like mine should bring together commentary from both sacred and secular experts. It was just enough to make my use of “religious innovator” feel incomplete and limiting. But I wasn’t ready to replace it with something more inclusive.
I have noticed in recent years that more and more people are replacing their one word titles with a long list of descriptors to let their readers know “what they are.” Titles that we recognize often go with roles that already exist—teacher, pastor, lawyer, manager, contractor, etc.
When I published my book Alone: A 4,000 Mile Search for Belonging in 2016, I struggled with how to describe myself. The book was autobiographical. I wasn’t writing it as a pastor or as a cyclist. I was writing it from depths of my naked soul. What I came up with was a list of descriptors none of which captured my identity individually, but taken together painted a pretty clear picture.
Brian Heron is a writer, speaker, overly-ambitious cyclist, community organizer, pastor and pilgrim who has an insatiable curiosity to discover the pulse of the world and the rich landscape of the soul.
That is what I wrote in 2016. No single title could contain what was emerging from my soul. I can tell you what I am doing much more easily than what I am. I am cultivating a pilgrimage culture in America. I am not sure exactly what that makes me, but for now I like “Cultural Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim.”
This work will include the religious community, but it is not about the religious community. It’s about creating new ways of connecting and coming together in an America that is experiencing epidemic levels of loneliness and isolation.
That is cultural. Religion is invited to the table.
Brian Heron
Cultural Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim