Paul Lundborg

I was a writer long before I became an author. For 37 years I worked as a Lutheran (ELCA) pastor in five different congregations, and in those churches I used my voice and my pen/typewriter/computer to put together words for the purpose of communicating an important message. When I retired in 2006, I was free to write at my leisure, and two topics begged for my attention.

The story of my ancestors, who were Swedish immigrants killed during an Indian war in 1862 in Minnesota, was my immediate project, and in 2013 I completed the writing of Death of a Dream. In late December 2019 I finished Becoming a Pastor, a book of stories to honor parishioners who became my teachers, a book that eventually became a type of memoir. Now I can call myself an author.

I'm a Midwesterner, descendant of Scandinavian immigrants, raised in a small town named Milan in the prairie country of west-central Minnesota. I'm a husband, dad, and grandpa now contentedly living in the Pacific Northwest in Olympia, Washington. In between Milan and Olympia I lived and either worked or studied in South Dakota, North Dakota, New York, and California. Retirement has enabled me to do purposeful and interesting travel to Turkey, India, Madagascar, Mexico, and Europe. I've visited ancestral homes, found new relatives, and made friends in Norway and Sweden. I find great delight in the church where I am now a member in Olympia where I'm free to sing in the church choir, volunteer to occasionally teach classes and take my turn serving meals at the Salvation Army, and enjoy the friendship of a group of 15 other retired pastors. At the center of my life are my wife of 54 years, our two sons and two granddaughters, friends, and the evolving Christian faith handed down through the centuries.