Brian L Erickson

Rev. Dr. Brian L. Erickson, Master of Divinity, Doctor of Ministry, is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He grew up in a little town of 700 people in North Dakota, and from there studied, taught and served as a professor and parish pastor in such diverse places as Moorhead, Minnesota, Chicago; St. Paul; Boston; Spokane; Fargo; Hemet, California; Mexico; Switzerland; Phoenix; and the greater Washington D.C. area.

His first published work on Death and Grieving was an article in The Lutheran Standard, "With All My Heart," about the death of his wife, Pauline. Brian has reworked Pauline's journal entries as she was dying, along with his journal entries the year after she died, into a new book: "When the Northern Lights Went Dark: My Journey through Loss and Grief to Healing and Hope."

From the Introduction to this book:

"I have experienced love and grace over and over again throughout my life, but that experience of love has come through and along with much pain and struggle. I have been shaped by loss and grief, and by the God and communities of love who bore me when I could not walk myself.

In what follows I share the losses that have shaped me, and what I have learned from them, not so that you can get to know me, but so that you can get to know yourself. I believe that the most particular is also the most universal, and that my story will lead you deeper into your own story as you try to understand who you are and why you are the way you are. As you do that, I am pretty sure that you will love yourself even more."