Elder Speak: Glen Carlson has found peace and meaning by accepting the joys and sorrows of life
Glen Carlson thinks deeply, seeks to understand the world around him, and sees his life as a series of unfolding experiences that have shaped his view of the world and his place in it.
Carlson is one of four participants in the 2025 Elder Speak program put on by The Ripple Foundation, along with retired educator Merry Roy, her psychologist husband Joe Roy, and longtime Stehekin educator Ron Scutt.
They’ve been meeting regularly since the first of the year to collectively explore the experiences in their lives that have taught them important lessons. They’ll be sharing that wisdom at a couple of upcoming events, Sept. 7, 2-4 p.m. at Snowy Owl Theater on the Sleeping Lady campus, and on Oct. 9, 6-8 p.m. at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center.
Carlson is a self-described introvert who has learned to appreciate the company of solitude and the value of reflection. He has a philosopher’s intellect who looks at life’s experiences with a growth mindset — learning from experiences and evolving.
His journey began in the Lake Superior port of Duluth, Minnesota. He and his brother grew up in a secure, loving home, where family mantras like “You can’t go wrong by doing the right thing” were frequent visitors. His early years were spent in an apartment above Daugherty Hardware, where his dad worked. His mom was an artist who shed color and light.
When he was in third grade, his family inherited a house on Duluth’s Central Hillside. Importantly, the property also came with a hunting cabin. The move marked Carlson’s first exchange of innocence for experience. He left behind two friends, but discovered the wonders of nature while tramping the north woods with his dog, Mitzi. Along the way, he began a friendship with himself that continues to grow with age.
Carlson relayed another life pivot point when he arrived in boot camp in 1968 and, soon after, volunteered for duty in Vietnam. He landed in the so-called “Brown Water Navy” and served with a mobile combat repair unit that supported Swift Boats in I Corps and the Mekong Delta.
After his tour of duty, he arrived home no longer an innocent youth, but a man, wary and uncertain of where he fit in the puzzling new world around him. He found support in a commune of like-minded souls that he describes as a “stable of angels that welcomed me into their home and helped launch me in a healing direction.”
Over the next 18 months, Carlson would circle the U.S. from Canada to Mexico, “experiencing life, and nudging myself from disorder into reorder.” His reorder plan kicked into high gear when he returned to Duluth in the spring of 1974 for a job with the U.S. Postal Service. When he went house hunting, he met a woman named Marney Anderson on her daughter Corey’s sixth birthday. They were vacating their small cabin for a job in Rochester. But, they never did say goodbye.
Instead, during the fall of 1974, they all moved together to Chelan, found jobs, and married a year later. Soon after, they sold their First Creek land and headed for college in Seattle. In spring of 1980, with a Broadcast Communications degree and a new daughter in hand, they began filling in the lines of family, career, and community between stints in Duluth and Chelan.
During the Vietnamese Boat People exodus of the 1980s, the Carlsons volunteered to provide a temporary crisis shelter for Vietnamese teenagers who had escaped Vietnam. Over a six-year span, they hosted 13 different boys under Lutheran Social Service’s Unaccompanied Minors Program.
In 1994, the Carlsons headed west, back to Lake Chelan. It was an emotional return. Glen reflected, “We left our home and loved ones in Duluth to return to our home and loved ones here in Washington. We considered ourselves favored to have the conundrum of two differently formed halves fit so well into the wholeness of our lives.” Four years later, the Carlson world would be shaken by another major pivot point.
(From Glen’s Journal for Friday, November 13, 1998:
“Today at 3:35 pm, a curtain of darkness fell across the path of our family’s carefree frolic through time. That’s when a young family practitioner plunked down on a stool, and, with little fanfare announced, “I’m sorry, you have breast cancer, and it is an aggressive type.
That simple sentence carried the destructive force of a Category 5 Hurricane. The earth swayed beneath us and the winds ripped our hopes from hands and hearts. The familiar patterns of our normal life were carried away by the force of the gale.
Left behind to struggle in the wreckage, were the two of us.” )
According to Carlson, four and a half years of cancer was a compressed version of the ebbs and flows of life. “Early on, through the disappointments of doctor days and scary diagnoses, we realized that we could not continue to bank worry. We already had plenty! Worry was clawing away at our bank of goodwill. We decided that since our future was compromised, we would pour ourselves into the beauty of the present moment. It was an inspirational choice. The more we sought life in the moment, the longer our days together seemed to stretch.”
Marilyn D Carlson, 54, died February 17, 2003. She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family in the comfort of her East Wenatchee home. The treasure of her love will be missed by all who knew her.
The morning after Marney’s passing, Anna visited her dad and asked, “Do you know what’s different about today, dad? You don’t have anyone to take care of.” Her question flipped a switch in her dad’s circuits. Yes, he was different today. Changed, like his eight-year-old self, who left the old neighborhood for a new home and an old hunting shack, which opened him into seeing nature with new eyes.
One month later, on the same date that Marney died, a used, for-sale 1997 VW Eurovan Camper descended into the center of Carlson’s new life. He bought it, and similar to his long-ago dog Mitzi, “Angel” would become his faithful 20-year companion in playing hide-and-seek with the Creator of creation.
In February 2006, Carlson recalls he became aware that he was beginning to pay more and more of a different kind of attention to Tracy Faulkner, who was a staff member at First United Methodist Church. He met her five years previously when he and Marney began attending church there. He had worked with Tracy in different volunteer capacities. But his feelings had nothing to do with church.
Carlson said, “Tracy and I had a one-day turnaround drive to Spokane for a church related project. On the way back to Wenatchee, we began to exchange our mutual interests in each other, and we both got a bit giddy in doing so. Next February will mark 20 years since that pivot point conversation and over 19 years since we have been married and walking hand in hand into the second half of our lives together. “
Carlson’s most recent awakening took place on his 64th birthday when his brother Mark sent him Richard Rohr’s meditation for May 21st in 2014. Rohr’s words on eldership sparked a longing in Carlson for a more profound understanding of spiritual life.
Carlson attended online studies from the Center for Action and Contemplation and completed the CAC’S two-year Living School program in 2017.
That drive to mine the spiritual life led Carlson to organize weekly “Mind–Full Living” gatherings at First United Methodist Church to exercise the art of staying present with every aspect of our lives.
One thing he has learned is that what you look for in your life, you will find. If you look for conflict or hatred, you will find them. “If, on the other hand, you’re looking for the good, you’re going to find it as well, and in abundance!”
Glen Carlson has made a practice of focusing on the goodness in people and trying to joyfully embrace everything that happens, from life’s wonderful moments to its most difficult challenges.
Imagine what would be possible in our communities if more of us devoted our lives to following that path.
