Episode Nineteen: The Interview - Father Jesse

Meet Father Jesse, a groovy Orthodox priest who loves Tolkien, once had blue hair, played in a rock band and was a barista! His story of his adoption is his miracle-listen in on our conversation on what it means to be chosen in our longer interview.

Transcript

I was given up for adoption when I was eight weeks old.

My birth mother had previously had an abortion,

And I only bring that up to say that it was a possibility.

It was something that she had entertained in the past and saw as an option.

And so the first,

I would say the very first miracle in my life is that she chose not to do that.

My name is Father Jesse Robinson.

I'm 41 years old.

I like to say that I am a child of God created in His image and likeness.

I am a husband to Uria Chelsea,

Xeña,

And father to three boys,

Four,

Two,

And eight months.

And I'm an Orthodox Christian priest and the assistant pastor at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Santa Fe,

New Mexico.

How was that?

That was awesome.

That was perfect.

That was perfect.

I was raised in the Protestant Evangelical denomination called the Church of Christ.

And my father was an assistant pastor there and a preacher.

And we got up basically every Sunday morning,

Saturday nights and Wednesday nights too,

But Sunday morning in our Sunday best.

And our church was just right down the street.

This particular denomination,

This church puts a great emphasis on the scripture.

And I'm very grateful for that.

And I was raised being taught the Bible by some great people and in great,

Really fun,

Memorable ways.

I remember sing-alongs and puppet shows and plays and skits and dress up and vacation Bible school.

And it really laid this foundation for me hearing a lot of the Bible stories.

When I became a teenager,

My parents divorced and my dad stopped going to church,

Which was a little rough because he was an assistant pastor and there was a bit of a scandal there at the church.

And I kept going to church,

To the same church.

But I think like a lot of teenagers with a lot of angst and resentment,

And I didn't really know for what reason I had that.

But my faith was still there.

Eventually my dad and a new stepmother joined the Episcopalian church.

And I kind of stopped going to church as I got older,

Kind of stopped going altogether.

I used to tell people,

I've got my own church now.

The church of Jesse,

Who was,

I was the head pastor,

The only member and the god of it.

And kind of out on my own,

I was a drummer in a band for a while.

I had pierced ears and blue hair at one point.

Yeah,

So I graduated from high school and moved out on my own right away.

And I got a job as a bouncer at a nightclub.

And I was working,

You know,

Bouncer at a nightclub,

Working till like four in the morning.

And then one day while working on one of my shifts as a bouncer,

I got a call from my dad.

And he said,

We found this new church and I think you'll like it.

By some,

Probably by the grace of God alone,

I finished my shift at four and then got my butt back out of bed a few hours later to go to this service that they were having.

So there I go,

Haven't,

I just had my morning coffee.

Like I think I maybe got two hours of sleep,

But something got me out of bed.

And I went to this family's living room.

And I was 19,

Pull up,

Blue hair,

Pierced ears.

I walk in,

And it was quiet and dark.

And there were candles going and incense burning.

And one of the women in the group came and greeted me and gave me a big hug and said,

We're so glad you're here.

The hardened quote unquote,

The hardened appearance was never an issue.

The blue hair and the pierced ears and just having worked in a nightclub and all of that that I brought was embraced literally in that hug,

But also by the community.

And I went in and it was like stepping into another planet.

It was very new to me.

I had never experienced a liturgical worship like that before,

Let alone in somebody's living room.

I think they had to put up icons and it was beautiful.

And I was hooked right away.

And they were very patient with me and they did not pressure me or push me.

They certainly included me in everything.

And then after several months of sort of official catechism and meeting Orthodox priests from all over the country,

They were all sitting in that same living room and the conversation of like actually joining the Orthodox church came up and they all said,

Yeah,

We're ready.

And then they kind of looked at me and I was like,

Yeah,

Let's go.

Yeah,

I waited tables too.

And I worked as a barista and I worked at the Apple store for a long time and the kind of the common thread in all those things is kind of what you're saying is like serving people and meeting them where they are and trying to take these kind of mundane experiences like repairing an iPhone and turn them into something meaningful.

And repairing an iPhone is more important than people realize because sometimes you have priceless videos and photos on there that you don't want to lose.

Oh,

I could tell you some stories.

Yeah.

That is,

You're doing God's work there in the iPhone store.

I'm sure you can tell me a lot of stories.

Yep.

Oh,

Yeah.

I have to tell you every time I went into the iPhone store in Portland,

Which is so glitzy and glamorous and beautiful.

I was so scared.

It was a very overwhelming experience because there are all these people who work there staring at you the second you walk in the door and then someone approaches you and it just is- Yeah,

What are you doing here?

Yes,

Yes.

And it's just so overwhelming.

I'm so glad I never have to go to one of those again ever.

I'm glad that you said that and you used the word overwhelming because that reminds me of a story.

I actually was up to,

I was interviewing for a management position at one of the stores in Boston with this big beautiful new store,

Like three or four stories.

It was like the best store,

The best Apple store in Massachusetts at the time.

And I remember walking into that store and I had worked at a little local in a mall Apple store.

And I just kept walking through there and people kept asking me like,

So how are you doing?

What do you think?

And I kept saying,

This is all so overwhelming.

To the point that when I did not get that job and they gave me feedback later,

Somebody said,

You kept saying how overwhelmed you were.

You kind of sense when you're walking into the Apple store that there's blood in the water because you're someone who doesn't really know anything about tech.

And so you're the chum that's been thrown in the water and then the sharks are circling.

And I could feel that as the Apple tech support people approached me.

I could feel,

I could actually hear the theme from Jaws playing,

If you want to be honest.

Oh man.

That's too bad.

I'm sure that's not what Apple is going for.

One of your questions was to tell a moment where I felt like a miracle or maybe God's hand.

And that was a very difficult question for me because I feel like my whole life has been a series of those,

A lot of little ones that as hard as I tried to get in my own way,

As I said,

Like have my own little religion,

There has always been an undeniable presence of a person moving me in a direction and moving things out of the way.

Not that I had a perfect life,

Certainly not or free of any kind of pain or suffering.

No,

Absolutely not.

But the struggles that I went through brought me to where I am today.

It sounds like you were very lovingly led to your decision and not coerced or forced.

Lovingly led is a great way to put it.

As long as we keep in mind that sometimes lovingly lead someone,

I'm a father and if I see my son going to touch a hot stove,

I am going to lovingly lead him away from that hot stove by yelling at him.

As long as we can include that kind of love in it,

Certainly,

Yeah.

I was given up for adoption when I was eight weeks old.

My birth mother had previously had an abortion and I only bring that up to say that it was a possibility.

It was something that she had entertained in the past and saw as an option.

I would say the very first miracle in my life is that she chose not to do that and instead give me what ended up being a very loving family.

But one of the things,

My parents were so great.

I grew up watching afterschool specials or weekend sitcoms where they deal with the topic of adoption and it's parents telling a main character that they're adopted well into their teenage years.

I'm not going to cast any judgment on someone who decides to do that.

It's just a really difficult decision and it's hard to navigate.

But I would like to make a plug for how my parents did it,

Which was they told me from the very beginning that I was adopted.

My dad is an artist and he drew a little cartoon storybook for me and it was part of stories that they told me going to bed that there was somebody who loved me so much but they couldn't take care of me so they took me to some people who could take care of me.

Framing it in this really great way of being chosen rather than being given up,

Which was just really incredible and really made me feel loved by my adoptive parents.

What's really great about this is that fast forward to just five years ago,

I decided I wanted to track her down and ended up finding her and she is an incredible woman and we have a great relationship.

She was beyond thrilled to hear of how my life ended up.

She's a Christian herself in a different denomination but because of our common belief we have a lot to talk about and we relate really well.

And it's really funny because I think had she raised me,

This may have been one of the endings that she would have hoped for.

There's a lot of horror stories out there and I feel for those folks who the story doesn't end well.

My wife and I had both sort of come to the resolution that it didn't matter how she was.

We decided we didn't want anything to end well.

Anything from her.

My wife and I talked through a lot of some of the worst case scenarios like what if she's just terrible or what if she says something terrible or what if she's entirely absent?

What if she's dead?

You know a lot of these different scenarios and we decided that we were going to take the step together to reach out to her.

That we decided we don't need anything from her but that what we wanted to do was no matter who she is or what her situation was,

Was to convey that gratitude for the decision that she made.

And also regardless of who she turned into we both sort of thought she's got to be wondering what's been going on.

And so we would offer we would want to offer some of that closure to her.

So wrote this long,

Tracked her down,

Found an email address and a mailing address for her this long letter and just basically saying what I just said there.

She wrote back and well one of the first things I said I was like I'm pretty sure you're the one I'm not sure if you're the one so maybe whether you are or you aren't you could verify for me.

And then the very when she wrote back her very first line was yes it's me.

And it's so interesting to me I'm sure that a lot of women who gave up children experience an intense grief of course but then also guilt around that decision and so I'm so glad and grateful that you were able to connect with your mom and that she's such an amazing human being.

I mean that that's such a gift and it must have been such a I don't know ratification maybe for her that she made the right decision that she did the right thing.

Drywall job sites are a very unique culture.

I don't know how they are now but when I was a kid you know nobody had smartphones yet so everybody talked to each other and just to give you an idea of kind of what it was like my dad took over this business from his brother when he worked for his brother and and they were halfway done with the company and they were like oh my god I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

I'm going to be a doctor.

So I was halfway done with the job and half of the employees they got paid for the half.

Half of the employees disappeared with all the money and went out and basically spent it on drugs and had on vendors and including my uncle and so there was no one there was only half the crew left to finish this job and my dad stepped up and said if you to the to the whoever the owner was if you were going to be a doctor and that's how his company started and so that was his first job and then it was literally word of mouth from there but I bring that up because the job sites were my dad almost exclusively only hired the type of people that nobody else wanted to hire.

The rejects and he is still kind of that type of person to to this day.

A lot of addiction.

A lot of guys coming from broken homes and abusive situations and things like that and so these are these are a lot of people that I spent a big chunk of my childhood with not that they were like a bad influence or anything they were actually really great.

One of my dad's best friends who ended up dying from an overdose was also like an uncle to me so I mean just tools in the tool bag like learning how to deal with real people and it was for him because he was also a pastor while doing this so it was for my dad a ministry for him.

What I think is so fascinating about that is you were speaking about how your father your family your parents framed your adoption and that you were chosen and it sounds like this is exactly what your father was doing with those what you called the rejects.

He was choosing them.

Yeah I think he probably identified as a reject himself.

He was pretty nerdy as a kid.

He's half Chinese and he grew up in the 60s so he experienced himself a lot of discrimination and he was just like seeing pictures of him he was a lanky little nerdy like a half Chinese kid and I feel bad for him but he tells me stories all the time yeah he was bullied and you know kind of on the fringes so I think he really identifies with that type.

You have to be someone who is really has a really strong sense of self and have a really expansive generous sense of self and you have to be someone who is really passionate to go through that and then come out on the other end not being cynical not being jaded and want to help and raise up other people.

Your dad sounds amazing.

He is amazing.

I think so.

I love him very much.

We would come home I mean in the in the recent five or six years we come home for holidays and he just invites all the people who have nowhere else to go.

I mean you know those those folks who like they don't they just don't really have anywhere to go on holidays.

Well they can go to my dad's house and so he has this very I guess by orthodox Christian in America standards a very big Facebook following where it's all kind of like misfits and rag tags and not the proper sort of mold that we would think of kind of a of your just kind of typical pious Christian although they are very devout and pious.

I think what's so interesting about that is I think I hate to sound so cynical but a lot of people do not want to see those on the outskirts and I'm not sure why that is maybe because they're afraid one day they will be on the outskirts or they're afraid of sliding into that reality themselves or it's just too painful to witness but you have to be a pretty spectacular human being to help and be with people in places that are bleak and really difficult places to inhabit so it's it's both of you that's amazing.

I mean one of the things I wanted to say to you about your adoption story is that what I love is there's two really beautiful miracle moments.

One when your biological mother chose to keep you and give you up for adoption and two when you were able to meet her and have a relationship and find out that she's super groovy.

I mean those are both really precious life moments.

Yeah.

So thank you.

Yeah my pleasure.

I'm happy to share that.

Also I think you know part of me feels that adoption is a tough subject to for a lot of people to talk about.

You know for a lot of people who can't have children there's a lot of shame and a lot of guilt that they're not able to conceive and so you know they're carrying that and then of course for the biological parents parent there's a lot of shame around not being able to care for that child and so it's a subject that is really really heavy I think for most people.

Yeah I definitely try to be sensitive to that when talking about it and I think that's part of what made it so great for us was sort of realizing like the story the end of my story is not the same as everyone else and how grateful I was for that.

Thanks for listening to episode 19 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us if only we open our eyes to it and whether you choose to listen to our Bite-Sized offering for that five to ten minutes of freedom in your day or the longer interviews we're grateful you're here.

I need to thank Father Jesse for sharing his story today as well as the creators of the music used.

Philip Rice,

Music L.

Files,

Agnies Falmagia,

Frank Schroeder,

Alexander Nakarada,

Rommel Pro,

Luis Mayorga,

And Winnie the Moog.

For complete attribution please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bite-sized-blessings.

Com.

On the website you'll find links to other change makers books and music I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening and here's my one request.

Be like Father Jesse and his father.

Be willing to see the people on the edges and then invite them to dine at your table.

So do you