Episode 22-
Laura O'Brien
Laura O’Brien on Finding Faith Pt.1
Faith is an important tool that many people use to navigate the world. Today’s guest, Pastor Laura O'Brien has had an unconventional journey to finding hers. Laura is a Lutheran Pastor, who has worked all over the world.
Her book Hell Hope on Wheels charts her incredible journey across the US., Europe and eventually to her faith. Laura wasn’t brought up in a religious household, and was even exposed to some elements of faith that she didn’t agree with on her epic journey.
In part 1, we’ll be focusing on some of the life events that feature in her book.
Join us next time for Part 2 of Laura’s interview.
Resources
Follow your curiosity, connect, and join our ever-growing community of extraordinary minds.
What's In This Episode
Follow your curiosity, connect, and join our ever-growing community of extraordinary minds.
Transcript
Recording:
Extraordinary.
Leader.
Innovative.
Integrity.
Honest.
Courageous.
Curious.
Thoughtful.
Brave.
Unafraid.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
There is a place where technology and art meet, where work and play are one and the same. When the threads of curiosity are pulled in this place, the spark of innovation ripples across industries. Those who make this place their home are giants, titans who pursue creative passion while leaving their mark.
Recording:
Creative.
Flexible.
Brilliant.
Clever.
Confident.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
They are courageous thought leaders set on changing the practice of dentistry and their corner of the world. More than the sum of their parts, we deconstruct the traits that bind these uncommon innovators.
Recording:
Humble.
Daring.
Disciplined.
Playful.
Principled.
Spontaneous.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
To discover what makes them Contrary to Ordinary, where we explore the extraordinary.
Hi there. I'm Dr. Kim Kutsch, host and founder at CariFree. I'm fascinated by what makes the paradigm shifters, world shakers, and art makers tick. Let's embark on a journey. Extraordinary is a place where ordinary people choose to exist. Together we will trek the peaks of possibility, illuminate the depths of resilience, and navigate the boundless landscape of innovation to discover how some of the most innovative dentists and thought leaders unlocked their potential and became extraordinary.
Happy New Year and welcome to Contrary to Ordinary, the show where we explore the motivation, lives, and character of the innovators who see limitless potential around them, the people behind some of the largest paradigm shifts in the practice of dentistry and beyond. It's great to be back, and I'm looking forward to sharing a whole variety of new extraordinary conversations with you in 2024. If you've listened for a while, you might have guessed that faith is very important to me and influences the way I navigate the world. Today I'm speaking to someone who has had an unconventional path to finding God, Pastor Laura O'Brien. Laura is also an author. Her book Hell on Wheels charts her incredible journeys across the US, Europe, South America, and eventually back again. This is part one of my conversation with Laura, and we're going to focus on some of the extraordinary life events that led her to where she is today. Hers is a surprising tale with many twists and turns. I really hope you enjoy taking it all in. Laura is one of nine siblings and started her journey in the little town of Dallas, Oregon. As a tomboy in a conservative town, she didn't fit in all that well. Life seemed pretty normal until Laura's father passed away when she was a teenager.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
We did a 180. My mom was the Junior League lady who ran the March of Dimes and always had dinner on the table, she worked full-time, and then that's when she also decided that we should be able to bicycle across the country, and so we went from being the Junior League perfect family to crazy. You just think everything works one way and then there are no rules, they're gone, and your parent who's still around isn't functioning so you become the adult. It's hard.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. It is hard, right, to be forced into that abruptly?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
At the same point in time, I can also see being a single parent with nine kids...
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah, is crazy.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Is crazy. I mean-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. Having three would be hard, but I think my mom for a year she checked out for... You can see this happen. It helps me in ministry. I understand exactly how a mom or a spouse who's just lost a loved one... I'm like, "Don't make a decision for a year."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
You guys rode across the country.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
From Dallas, Oregon to New York City.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
That's pretty much coast to coast.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
The furthest we had biked from Dallas before we did this is one, maybe twice, we rode to Independence, which is 10 miles each direction, got a thing at Taylor's Drugstore, got a soda, got back on our bikes, and rode home.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
How many days? I mean, how long did that take?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Eight weeks.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Eight weeks.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
But I will say for all our craziness, it was the best thing for all of us because we first found out we were really tough, a lot tougher than we ever gave ourselves credit because we all think we're six feet tall, but we're all about 5'2, but we did find out that we can get through a lot. We also figured out that we can do a lot together. We didn't have to like each other but we had to support each other, and we never went in a straight line ever. Everything was a zigzag because my mom wanted to see sites, but they're not a straight line.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. No, they're not linear. Yeah, there's no... Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
No. Yeah. She wanted to go to Yellowstone.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
I was going to say.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
You have to climb up to Yellowstone. Then she wanted to see Mount Rushmore, so then you got to go down to Mount Rushmore. Then she wanted to go see... Oh, she wanted go to Missouri, so then we got to go down to Missouri.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Imagine having no experience of cycling long distances and then deciding to take your nine kids across the country on an epic trip like this one. They only camped and never stayed in hotels. Of course, they had never even set up a tent before. It just sounds bonkers, even though they got through it in the end. Going through a major life change can really cloud your judgment. Most people know what it's like to live in that haze of grief when you don't know if you're coming or going. I think Laura's advice that you shouldn't make any major life decisions for at least a year after a loss makes a lot of sense. When Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount, he said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." He tells us that faith and dark times can provide comfort, something that many people of all religious persuasions cherish deeply. Laura decided in middle school that she wasn't going to be a grade-A student. Some of her brothers and sisters went to college but she had other plans.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I've always been the one that's like, "I'm going to do the opposite." I knew it used to wind my parents up. I just didn't try, right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I had a plan from eighth grade that I was only going to barely get through high school, and it was a concrete plan because we were sitting in the auditorium at LaCreole Middle School or it was junior high and the counselor gets up and says, "Now, before you go to high school, you need to know a few things. One is if you get more than four Fs, you can't graduate." I heard, "You can get four Fs and still graduate."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
So I figured... I even knew what I was going to fail. I had it all mapped out. This is between my junior year and my senior year that we biked, and my plan was going great. I had a 1.91 grade point average. I flunked.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
You were right in there.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I was right where I wanted to be. My mom was in a panic I wasn't going to graduate. It was constant. My mom's boss's cousins lived in Alexandria, and that was the first house we stayed at. We got there and he drove us into Washington DC that night. He drove us through Georgetown, and I saw all these guys waiting to get into the bars and I thought, "I really want to go there." I knew that there's no way I was going to college. It wasn't going to happen. Then he parked behind the Lincoln Memorial and we climbed up the Lincoln Memorial and I went and read Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream. I didn't care too much about the memorial. It's too big.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's just big.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
It's just too big.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's big.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
But Martin Luther King always was special for me, and so I went and read his I Have a Dream speech and then I thought, "Well, I could have a dream. Maybe it'll happen." That was always kind of back of my head that this is where I wanted to be, this is where I wanted to go. The reason for what I was telling you earlier about the book, it ends in 1988 because that's when I was on a plane to go live in Washington DC.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I ended up graduating from George Washington University.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. That's why the book I was telling you about starts the night I found out our dad died and it ends with when I'm on a plane to go to DC. Yeah.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Let's back up just a second. You've written a book.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Okay. The book's called... Actually it's Hope on Wheels but it hope's written under hell and hell's scratched out.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Scratched it.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. It's Hell on Wheels. It starts with the morning I found out my dad died, which was about five o'clock in the morning. He'd been in a coma for two weeks up at Providence Hospital, and we knew... He had had a triple bypass surgery, and when they cut him open all the plaque went through his system, basically poisons you and you slowly die. Yeah. So here's my mother with nine children. He was only 46. He was a young guy. He wasn't very old. My mom was 45 and I had just turned 16. Then it goes on to explain how the idea of the bike trip came about, the bike trip itself, and then coming back.
Nothing is harder than seeing the world and opportunity and going back to your very little conservative town where you're about ready to flunk out of high school and you feel trapped. I made really poor choices during that time, but then a good, good friend of mine from high school, Damaris Dickerson, she came to me after we graduated. She was kind of lost too. Her parents were fundamentalist charismatic missionaries in Brazil and she'd been back and forth. We were both kind of similar, I mean, even though she was the prom queen and everything else and I was a wreck. We always stayed kind of tight. She came to me and she goes, "Do you want to go to Brazil?" I said, "Yes. I want to get out of Dallas." Yeah. She goes, "Okay." This was like March, April. She was home for her spring break and she goes, "Let's go after Christmas." I said, "Perfect."
I went and got a job at the cannery, worked my ass off to get as much money as I could get, we got our plane tickets, and we went. I remember my mom looking at me and said, "I'll let you go." I remember looking at her saying, "I ain't asking. I am gone." We spent three months there and I was introduced to a very different form of Christianity than I was comfortable with or would ever adopt, but I was also in Brazil where they speak Portuguese so every time I turned around, Damaris would go, "Did you feel the spirit?" They're speaking in tongues and everything. I'm like, "Oh my God." I'm like, "No because I don't even understand what they're saying." Right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Then for Carnival, I had to go to this Christian revival thing in the middle of the jungle, which was a whole different thing in and of itself, so I wasn't having a good vibe about Jesus at this point at all. I didn't like what I was seeing. It was very authoritarian, very patriarchal.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Definitely not mainstream.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
No. No, it wasn't. I don't know another word for it. It's kind of ugly in its own way. There was a hierarchy and if you were the white American and you were the top, and then... I didn't like it. I did meet some really nice people on the side too, but then we were at this place in Rio. We were about ready to fly home. It was Easter morning, and Damaris, she'd been pushing Jesus, man, she was wanting me to accept Jesus, and I'm like, "Ain't going to happen." So she goes, "I want to read the Easter story for Matthew." I'm like, "Okay. This is your last shot. We're flying home tomorrow. Go for it, buddy. Hit me with your best shot." Right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah, exactly.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
So she read it and then I listened. We were at this crappy hotel. We had to pay for the sheets kind of place.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh boy. Okay.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
But by then we were pretty hardcore travelers. We didn't care. She closed the Bible and she goes, "I didn't know that." I go, "You didn't know what?" It was about... In Matthew it says that the leaders of the Jews paid the guards not to say that the tomb was empty and to lie about it. I've been hit with the Bible for three months. I said, "Have you ever read it?" She goes, "Well, no." I said, "You've never read the Bible?" She's like, "Well, not all of it." Then I'm like, "Well, maybe they don't know what they're talking about." So it was a little crack, right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
When I got home after that, I found out we were bicycling through Europe. I didn't know for a fact that we were doing this, but we were. I got home and two months later, three of my siblings were on a plane to go to Amsterdam and we biked for three months through Europe with no money.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. Wow. But just you and three siblings, not your mom.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. No.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Okay.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
No, that was a whole different thing. That was the life changer.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Laura's experience in Brazil showed her a kind of faith she didn't want. It seemed silly to her that her friend hadn't read the whole Bible but was still so immersed in this particular type of Christianity. St. Augustine, possibly one of Christianity's most prolific thinkers, may have began his journey with reading one passage of the Bible, but the wisdom he sought led him to read the text from back to front. This was something that he later wrote about, preaching the importance of the continuous seeking of knowledge in the scripture. I think that kind of big-picture thinking is common in extraordinary people. Eventually Laura would become very familiar with the Bible in its entirety, but you're probably now wondering what happened to her in Amsterdam that was so life-changing.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Well, we had to put the bikes together at Schiphol airport, which we didn't think through real well. When you're jet-lagged, don't try-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
To assemble a bike.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
... to assemble four bikes. You are going to get into the biggest fights. Then we'd heard things about Amsterdam, but there was no internet then, there was no Rick Steves, there was no idea. My grandma had been there and she'd say, "Well, that Red Light District is whatever." My brothers who were 17 and 16 at the time were like, "Yeah, we're going to Red Light District." I'm like, "No, we're not." We get the bikes together. We end up in the center of Amsterdam trying to find a place to sleep, and there's this place called Bob's Youth Hostel. Bob is a youth hostel, but he's also a drug dealer.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. My brother Tom's like, "Yeah, I think we should stay there." I'm looking at him like, "No." Even Paul's like... The younger one's like, "Tom, you're an idiot. We're not staying there." We ended up at a proper youth hostel, and then we went from Amsterdam into Germany, to Germany to Switzerland, from Switzerland to Italy, from Italy to France. It was crazy because we didn't have enough money so we could either eat or we could camp but we couldn't do both. We decided we would eat and then we went and knocked on farmers' doors and see if we could camp in their place, and they always let us. We made it work. A lot of stuff went down on that trip because the little boys weren't so little and they were hungry and they would shoplift, and then one of them got arrested in Switzerland.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh. Oh, wow. Okay.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Okay, we'll share this story because this one's funny. We find out in Germany that they'd been doing it, but they don't share.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Any of the food or share the story?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
No. The food.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh, okay. All right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. There's me and my sister are starving because there are two teenage boys, they need to eat, so we've cut back on our food so they could eat more. Every time we go into a grocery store, we kind of notice they disappeared, and then when they get on their bikes they would hang way, way back and they were always way, way ahead of us. I'm like, "Something's weird." Right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
We get to this really cool little village in the middle of the Black Hills and I go to take a picture in front of this castle, and my brother's holding a bag of wafer cookies. I'm like, "What are you doing? Where did you get that?" He's like, "Out of my sweatpants." You know?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
That's when we found out. We get to outside of Zurich, and my mom was wiring us some money and we said to him, "Please, we're going to go in and get some food. We have enough money to camp in Zurich, we have enough money to eat. Don't steal anything." He's like, "What, do you think I'm stupid?" I'm like, "Yeah, I do." He has a New York Yankees T-shirt on, a New York Yankees baseball cap, he's about six foot tall, blonde, he couldn't be more American, wearing cargo shorts, right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
You stick out like a sore freaking thumb.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. Yeah. True. Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. The other one, Paul, looks Italian so he blends in. The other one's an idiot. I said, ironically, "I'll watch the bikes while you guys go in." About 10 minutes later, my little brother Paul comes out and he goes, "Laura, Laura, come here." I'm like, "What?" I go around the side and he has... Pulling ham and cheese out of his armpits. I'm like, "What are you doing?" He goes, "That idiot. He got arrested for shoplifting. I told him not to do it." I'm looking at a pile, right?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I'm like, "Yeah, but what are you doing?" I go in and I said, "Just watch the bikes. I'm going to go in." They point me to the break room or the manager's room. I go in there and my sister Linda's having a conniption, Tom's in a separate room, two cops have walked in, and she decides the best way to get out of this situation is... There's a can of francs on top of a vending machine. She takes all the francs out of the vending machine to pay for Tom's ill-gotten gains, so we have all these francs that she just stole, all this food Paul stole, whatever we bought legally, and they take him to the police station and they bring the prosecutor in and they threaten to send him home and everything. Finally, they let him leave with a warning. Then we go down the road and then we're about 40 francs to the good and all the food that Paul stole. Yeah. That in a nutshell was how the whole trip went. It ended when I got hit by a motorcycle Fréjus, France.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Hi, Contrary to Ordinary listeners. We're going to take a short break from this conversation for our segment questions with Dr. Kim. Don't go anywhere.
In this segment, I'll answer a listener's questions about their dental health. If you have a question about your dental health that you want answered, then send it to podcast@carifree.com, that's C-A-R-I-F-R-E-E dot com, and add Questions with Dr. Kim in the subject line. If your question gets read out on the show then we'll send you a small gift to say thanks for checking in. This week's question reads, "Hi, Kim. I think I do a good job looking after my teeth and gums but I still occasionally get cavities. Both of my parents have had problems with their oral health for as long as I can remember, so I wonder have they passed this on to me? Thank you so much, and I love the show."
Well, thanks so much for the question and I'm sorry you're having problems despite your best efforts. It's true that genetics can play a role in your risk of developing cavities. While oral health is influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, the most common risk factors for cavities are lack of saliva, poor eating habits, poor oral hygiene, and then genetics. Research has identified a number of genes that influence your risk for cavities. While we can't test them yet specifically, it's important to be aware of their potential role in your dental health. If you, dear listener, would like more information on all things dental, then head to carifree.com, C-A-R-I-F-R-E-E dot com, where we've got more resources on dental health and our line of CariFree products that can help you keep a healthy smile. But right now, let's get back to the conversation.
Wow. Okay.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. That's... We had to learn to survive. We had to be savvy. We also had to learn to be nice to people. We spent a week in a commune in the north of Italy because they were super nice, but it was at the Vatican when I had the first glimpse that Jesus was a lot different than what my friend had kept pushing on me. Linda and I... I don't know if you've been in the Vatican, but you have to wear pants. We only had two pairs of Levi's between all four of us.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. So you took turns?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah, and we went behind St. Peter's and changed.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Linda and I went in first, and Linda went to go get the tickets to the Sistine Chapel and I was walking around the center and walked around the corner and I saw the Pietà. That was the first glimpse of what the passion really is and what grace really is. It was an experience. It wasn't a preaching moment, it was just beauty and sorrow and everything in one second. It lasted maybe like that. Then my sister came up and said, "Okay, we got to go." That stayed with me forever, and that was the first step to understanding Jesus the way I understand him today. It wasn't because somebody dunked me in a river or somebody told me I had to do something or I was going to go to hell. It was beautiful. You've heard me preach. This is something that's much more deeper than just mere words.
But then I came home, and this is how I get back to DC. I got home and my mom's like, "Well, Laura, you have two choices. You can go to school or you can get a job." I said, "Okay, that works." They all went back to school and my mom teaches, and so I'm the only one at home. I opened up The Oregonian and it said, "Young couple looking for a nanny for their overactive four-year-old in Washington DC."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Uh-huh.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I'm like...
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Done.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I call this lady in Portland and she says, "Well, could you come and meet me at the Terwilliger Curves Burger King next week?" "Yeah, I can do that." My friend Tracy, who we used to get in a lot of trouble together, drove me up there because she wanted to see what was going on. We're sitting at the Terwilliger Curves-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Burger King. Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
... Burger King right across from Fred Meyers and she goes, "Well, how are you going to know who it is?" This little Jaguar convertible pulls in and I said, "I have a feeling it's her."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. She comes in and her name was Nancy and she talks to me and she looks at my resume and she goes, "Well, I want you to come back to my house and I want you to talk to my daughter." I said, "Okay, let's do that." So we follow her up there and we're in the West Hills. She calls her daughter and I talk to the daughter and everything, and then I'm told the family's Ron Wyden. I'm like, "Okay. That's different." I'm thinking, "That'd be kind of... That'd be cool. I can do this." Two weeks later, I was living in DC.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. That's where the book ends. He got me into George Washington University.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh, okay. So it was who you know?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yes and no because later after I became a pastor, he called me. It's the last time I ever spoke to him in person. He said, "I want you to know I may have got you in but everything you did after that, you did it."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. You did it all on your own.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
"Don't let anybody tell you somebody gave you something that you didn't earn." He said, "I knew you could do it, but you could have also wasted it and you didn't so take that. If anybody says it's because of who you knew, tell them no." Partly. Yeah. There's a little part of it that is, but I needed that little part.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Right. The nudge.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I needed that little nudge, but what they did when I was a nanny for him-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
How long were you nanny then?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Six years.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
On and off. Two straight years. It was hilarious because they did... Adam was a little brat even at four and now at 44. He's special. But I was there for six weeks and they sat me down and I'm thinking I'm in trouble. They go, "Well, we have something we have to tell you. This is completely up to you whether you want to stay or you want to go." I said, "Okay." She goes, "Well, I'm pregnant." I said, "Oh my God. Do you know how many times I've had to listen to that?" She goes, "Well, you're okay with an infant?" I said, "Yeah."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah, from a family of nine. Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Nine, and I'm the fifth of nine. How many infants do you think I've had to live with? Then the second year, they both sat me down and they said, "Laura, why are you doing this?" I said, "What?" He said, "Why are you a nanny?" This was... "You're 21 years old now. Most people your age are graduating." I said, "Yeah, but I took a different career path." Ron was like, "Laura, you don't have a career." So they sent me to American University first semester first to see if I could succeed, and then I did well because it was their money and I felt obligated and that's how it went.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. How that kind of happens.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. Whether you like his politics or not is not anything-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
No, it's totally irrelevant.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah, because he's a thoroughly decent human.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Really a good person. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
He's a very good person with really bad sense of direction, but that's a whole other thing.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
If you're in DC, go figure that you'd run into somebody in politics at one time or another. Ron never made Laura feel like an employee and was kind of a mentor to her. He ended up being one of the many that guided Laura throughout her extraordinary life. Make sure you listen to part two of my conversation with Laura to find out all about them. There was one piece of advice that Ron gave to Laura that really stuck with her.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
One day I saw we were outside the senate building and all these... They look like employees and they were very busy and very professional and I said, "What a load of jackasses." He turned around and he said, "Laura, remember you need to take your job seriously but never take yourself too serious." That was probably the best advice he ever gave me.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. You take what you do serious, but once it becomes about you-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
... then you need to probably back up and life will give you a humility pill real quick.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Exactly. Yeah. The karma bus there.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
It does kind of go... It is a merry-go-round. Yeah.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. I mean-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
You're going to get smacked.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
When you were going to George Washington University then, is that when you made the decision for the seminary? I mean, where did that come from?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
No, no, no, no. Well, first to be a Christian had to come because they're Jewish. So in one year I went from this charismatic crazy thing in the middle of the jungle to Happy Hanukkah, which was great, really was. I really appreciated being able to see that and experience it for all it is, but what happened is I was almost ready to graduate from GW and I needed three more credits in history. There was a class called The Life and Thought of Jesus.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh, wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. I thought, "Well, gosh, he only lived 33 years so it can't be all that long to study." I took the class with a friend of mine who was supposed to take it with me and she didn't. At GW, they don't have classes on Friday normally so your party night is Thursday night.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Thursday night. Okay. Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Right. The summer before I lived in the Sigma Nu House. Me and a friend rented a room from them and so we got to be good friends with the Sigma Nus, and they were having a party the first Thursday night the spring semester started. He said, "Hey." Just my friend Greg goes, "Come to the party and then just sleep on my floor." I said, "Okay, but I got to be at a class at 8:30 in the morning." He's like, "Yeah, but it's just across the street." So I said, "Okay." I mean, still in the clothes I was in the night before, very hungover, and all I needed for that class was a Bible, which I did not own.
I ran down to Crown Books, which is this cheap bookstore. I went and got a drip coffee, trying everything. I got a 99 cent King James paperback Bible and I go into this classroom and all these people... There's probably about 12, 15, and they're very preppy. They have their Bibles. I'm like, "Oh man, this is going to be bad. This is bad." I sit clear back in Bell Hall in this classroom, put my feet up, kind of close my eyes, and this lady comes in and she wants to know why we're there. They all said, "Well, I want to have a better journey and relationship with my personal savior." Then I'm thinking, "This is going to be really bad."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
This is going to be a long term. Yeah. Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Long semester. She gets back to me because I'm the last and she goes, "Now..." She looks at her little thing, "Now, Laura, why are you here?" I said, "Well, I'm a history major and 33 years isn't that long to study." I thought it was pretty funny. She did not. They all looked at me like... I'm like, "Okay. He was a historical figure who lived 33 years. Give me a break." Yeah.
But what happened was I had to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John in acts. That was our text. It was just to know the context. Then there was another book we read, but through it she would give us assignments where it was just a passage and then you had to do a historical critical paper on it and then present it. It always just clicked. There was a moment when I read John where I went, "Oh, this is real." That was... Up till then, I was going to law school and then I wasn't. Then my friend Damaris became a flight attendant and lived... We stayed in contact and she lived in the DC area.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh, wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
She goes, "I'll tell you what, Laura. Why don't you go work in this orphanage that we had gone to visit for a year and I'll pay you? Figure out what you want to do." I said, "Okay." I did it, but that threw everybody in for a loop because I didn't become what I had always intended.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Laura found her faith unconventionally through higher education. Ron had wanted Laura to go to law school, but she wasn't interested in following in his footsteps. When she finished up with the Wydens, she floated back to Oregon and then onto two different orphanages in Brazil, all this before the age of 30. There's something to be said for welcoming change in your life. Maybe those early experiences of cycling long distances with little practice or know-how created an extraordinary lifelong resilience in her. When she got back from Brazil, she became a member of her local Lutheran church and that's where her journey to becoming a pastor was truly set in motion.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
But my pastor goes, "And why don't you do that? Why don't you apply to go to seminary?" I'm like, "Okay." I didn't have anything else to do. I didn't know. I didn't even know I wanted to do it. I just thought, "Well, I could get my masters, and then if I want to do something else with that, like teach or something, then that's a good launch pad." That's how I ended up in at seminary. It was a tough time. I quit drinking, I quit doing things, and you'd have to reorient your life completely. I was really cognizant I didn't want to be a judgmental Christian. I've always felt judged. You're just kind of navigating how you're going to live this faith life.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Uh-huh. What seminary? Where'd you go to-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I went to Dubuque, Iowa, and it was called Wartburg Theological Seminary. It's a castle.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Okay. Okay. Oh wow.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
It's beautiful. I was there for four years. It's a four-year program. It's not like Bible school.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
You have to go be a chaplain for a summer, you have to learn Greek, you have to learn Hebrew, you have to do an internship for a year, you have to have a psychological evaluation, then you have to pass, then you have to do an interview with your faculty, you have to do an interview with your synod yearly. It's actually-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's quite rigorous.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
It's very rigorous. I'm glad because I think you should be completely vetted. You have people's lives in your hands.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh right. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
When a doctor's done working with you, we're the ones that get to come in and you're the most vulnerable people on the planet so you have to have your stuff together. What I loved about Wartburg, though, and it was a lot like the way I got to know Ron, those professors, you never call them professor or doctor. They only went by their first name and they never sat in the faculty lounge. They always came and ate with us and talked to us and they treated us like colleagues from the get-go. In doing that, they mirrored to us how to be a leader. That was probably the biggest tool that they taught us.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's different now, but when I went through dental school, and all of my dental colleagues listening to this, it was a lot of hazing and most of the instructors were ex-military.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Oh man.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
We were treated very roughly, I would say.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
That's crazy.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Most of the instructors in the dental school had never actually practiced dentistry. It's those who can do, those who can't teach.
Then those who can't teach, teach in the dental school. That was kind of my experience. I think that was a common experience back in the day. I've got a colleague, he went to Maryland, and a very good friend and a colleague, but he said he remembered he was rooming with a guy that was going to medical school, and the two buildings were right next to each other, and from day one in the medical school they gave you a white coat and they called you doctor even though you were just a first year student.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Wow. Wow.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
They called you doctor and treated you like that all the way through school. On the dental school, they called you other names.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Wow.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
I mean, it was a totally-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
That's crazy.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
... night and day different experience, but it's not like that anymore.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I'd hope not. I was fortunate because I wasn't raised in a tradition so I didn't have a baggage of piety or anything. I didn't have anything. I just had me, but a lot of people were coming from the Midwest who were born, raised, confirmed-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. Born in the church, raised in it, confirmed.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
... and your local piety is really your theology almost. We've been accused of like, "We don't believe in the resurrection." That's not true at all for Lutherans, but we would be encouraged to read things that we didn't agree with and some people would take that as we were being taught that. They would be really good at saying, "This is what's out there. This is the stuff you need to know how to answer to without just shutting it down."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. You need to navigate through this.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
And you need to have a rational, calm conversation with people and need to be able to walk away from it and say, "You're okay." You can agree to disagree. So we would have to read books that say the resurrection didn't happen or the incarnation isn't what we think it is, but they never taught it. I think that's-
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. You just needed to be exposed to it.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
We had to be exposed to it because that's what's in the world, and it actually challenges you to grow in your own faith to discover why you don't agree with it, but these people would get all up in arms.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. I think, Laura, it's okay to have your faith challenged.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
You have to have your faith challenged.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Right. Because you have to really... I don't think you really get cemented in your faith until it's been challenged, right?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I don't think you're cemented in your faith till you die.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Probably not. I think because you're continually challenged throughout life because, I mean, you look at all the things that happen and you go, "Why? Why did that happen? God, why did you allow that to happen or what is going on?" Sometimes you're angry at God and sometimes you're like, "This doesn't feel right." You know?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
I think you weave in and out of that kind of. That's been my experience in life too, right?
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. What you were so concrete firm believer in 40 years ago, are they that big a deal now?
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
No.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Especially when it comes to cultural issues.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
No. No. Today it's like I look at it more from I don't really understand that and I haven't walked in those shoes.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. Shoes.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's like I'm not going to judge them.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
No.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
In fact, I'm going to embrace them.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
I have a good friend in Dallas, and she was my sponsor in AA. We're opposite sides of the political spectrum, but it's amazing that when we sit down and have coffee, we agree on way more than we disagree. It makes me wonder, "Well, who's profiting by us all yelling at each other? Because if we actually all sat down-"
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Somebody is. Right.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
"... and talked and allowed us... Instead of... Take all the labels away and have a conversation, you would find out we have actually more in common with each other and the same goals and the same hopes and the same dreams."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Same desires, same dreams, and worldwide.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
When you go to other countries and you think, "Well-"
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
"They're this."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. You have this idea of them, and then you sit down and talk with the people and it's like they're just like us and they-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
They just want.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
... just want have a-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
They want to have a place to live.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
They want a home, they want to be able to eat, they want to have some-
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Be safe.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Be safe. They want to raise children and have a happy life. I mean, it's just simple.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
Yeah. They want clean water.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Clean water. Yeah.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
They want clean air, they want clean things.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Basic stuff.
Pastor Laura O'Brien:
You just wonder who's... You do know who's making the money off of us yelling at each other and you know who's getting the power from it, but that's the one thing also as a pastor I've learned. I don't give a rat's about anybody's politics. Most people could probably guess mine.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks for listening to part one of my conversation with Pastor Laura O'Brien. In part two, Laura and I will be talking a little more about her life as a pastor, what books outside of the Bible have influenced her, and how we can leave the world better than when we found it. Around here we aim to inspire and create connections. We can't do it without you. If this conversation moved you, made you smile or scratched that little itch of curiosity today, please share it with the extraordinary people in your life. If you do one thing today, let it be extraordinary.