About
Short Bio:
Hi. I’m Dennis Gladden, author of this website. I’m glad you have visited.
I write about God, faith, and life with this in mind: “that which we have seen and heard we declare to you” (1 John 1:3). Having followed Jesus for five decades, I can say he has taught me much, disciplined me often, and loved me beyond measure.
I am an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and served as assistant pastor of the Rockville (CT) Church of the Nazarene from 1997 until we moved to Georgia in 2017.
I have been writing since my junior year of high school. My professional writing career spanned twelve years, ten as editor of our weekly community newspaper and two as publications editor for the systems department of Aetna Life & Casualty.
When I switched to programming, writing slipped into the shadows. I kept at it by freelancing, mostly letters to the editor and op-ed pieces. The highlight was an article published in Billy Graham’s Decision Magazine.
Two years ago, I resumed writing more regularly, first by accepting an offer to blog for an Estonian software company and then launching this website.
My wife, Sandra, and I married in 1978 and have two adult children, Laura and Jonathan, and three grandchildren. Natives of Connecticut, we relocated to Georgia when my wife retired from teaching. I still work full time, programming for a Massachusetts insurance company.
Long Bio:
Creative writing or ornamental horticulture?
My high school was introducing new electives and I had a choice to make. I leaned toward horticulture because flowers intrigued me, I had studied some botany and liked it, and had enjoyed some success nursing sickly plants to health.
My mother favored the writing class. She had aspired to journalism and enrolled in a correspondence course offered by the Newspaper Institute of America, but in the 1930s marriage and a baby nixed that pursuit. She continued to write—nothing for publication, but personal meditations and poems.
I suspect the writing class revived her dreams, although she didn’t talk of that. Her reasons were more pragmatic: Writing has a longer shelf-life and more career paths. It is also portable—you can write anytime, anywhere.
I chose creative writing.
Near the end of that year, my junior year in high school, New England Homestead, a regional magazine, accepted Cat Nap, a poem that described our cat prowling for a place to sleep and eventually crawling onto the back of our Saint Bernard where he would knead the thick fur, purr, and drift off.
I was the first to be published and the board of education invited me to a meeting to congratulate me. They were proud the elective classes showed such early success. The local newspaper printed the story.
That choice proved to be God’s providence, one of many times He has ordered my steps before me. Many steppingstones have landed me on this website. That class was the first.
The second was my own stint with the Newspaper Institute of America. For a variety of reasons—mainly immaturity—I decided against college. An editor with NIA responded that it was unusual for someone my age to enroll but I showed enough talent to work with. (Now I ask, what else would they say?) His remark sustained this teenager through three years of correspondence.
NIA wasn’t college, but it was enough to land me a job as a reporter with a startup weekly newspaper where my beat included local churches and general news. The following year, the publisher promoted me to editor, a position I held for nine years. This was unfathomable because I was the youngest and least experienced on the staff. God’s providence.
When our daughter was born and the paper advised me my salary was capped, I left for a corporate job at an insurance company. Postings had closed but my brother-in-law knew the hiring manager. She invited me to interview and hired me to edit publications for the systems department. God’s providence.
Two years later recession raked the markets and my professional writing career ended. Sensing internal publications were low priority amid the steep downturn of the early 1980s, I did what I vowed I never would—I asked to transfer to programming.
I was wary because math befuddles me and the company was reluctant because I lacked data processing experience, but they had me take a programming aptitude test. I barely passed. They gambled and let me enroll in some basic programming courses and work on a team for six months. “Let’s see how you do and whether you like it,” they said. Nearly forty years later I am still programming. God’s providence.
Although God in His wisdom detoured me to a path I did not foresee, writing continued to compel, bringing forth occasional op-eds, letters to the editor, and my ultimate prize, an article in Billy Graham’s Decision magazine (see The Extravagance of God).
Lately, I have turned my attention online. I resumed writing professionally—first by editing a help manual for a software company in Estonia, which shortly after asked me to start a blog. God’s providence.
I also started posting brief commentary and meditations on Facebook. The favorable response encouraged me to launch this website.
Apart from writing, I am ordained in the Church of the Nazarene and served as assistant pastor of the Rockville (CT) Church of the Nazarene from 1997 – 2017. I have led small group Bible studies, done some one-on-one discipleship, and taught adult Bible classes for about forty years.
The scriptures say,
The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way. —Psalm 37:23 (ESV).
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. —Proverbs 3:6
Reflecting on my six-decade journey, I bear witness to the truth of these statements. I see how God, in His providence, has led me in paths I had not imagined. I appraise my life in the same twelve words as Jacob: “God has been gracious to me and I have all I need” (Genesis 33:11).
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