In 1976, I married my first wife Sue on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) in Brown County Court House and adopted her daughter Lana. When the Judge suggested a six-month waiting period, I responded, “The little girl needs a father now.” He allowed it. A year later, when my laicization from the priesthood came through, we had our marriage blessed by a Norbertine priest in the Chapel at St. Norbert College, DePere, WI.
In mid-1976, I began selling large appliances for Montgomery Wards in Green Bay. It was a job where I got to meet people. One day in early 1977 I got recruited by an insurance Manager, so I began to sell Life & Health insurance around Green Bay and northeastern Wisconsin for Bankers Life of Des Moines. I met two brothers who ran a large dairy farm North of Oconto, WI, and they each purchased a $100,000 Life Insurance policy, for which I made roughly a $500 commission, plus a prize of six wonderful steak knives. Two months later, the brothers had a falling out and canceled their $100,000 policies. I had to pay back the $500 commission. I still have the steak knives.
In late 1978, I quit that company. I switched to another Life Insurer for a time. My wife had a good secretarial job with one of the large Paper Mills in Green Bay. She and I were volunteer Directors for the March of Dimes in Green Bay, and they had an opening for an Executive Director in Milwaukee, Interviewing with them, I took a battery of tests with a psychologist in Milwaukee who reassured both the March of Dimes and me that I was in the 95th percentile for Interpersonal Relations, and they offered me the job. I accepted it.
In January of 1979, I began a new spiritual journey. We moved to Grafton, WI. I became the Executive Director for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation in Milwaukee – a six-county operation. I had a staff of eight people and dozens of volunteers. I directed fund-raisers, gave talks to various civic and church groups, and met once a month with a medical group of doctors. My wife landed an executive secretary position for a Senior Executive in a Sporting Goods Manufacturer just north of Milwaukee. My salary was a staggering $13,000 a year. It proved insufficient as we now had a third child, another lovely daughter.
I also became Head of the Spirituality Committee at St. Joseph Catholic Community (Archdiocese of Milwaukee) for several years. They knew of my laicization from the priesthood but accepted me for my experience and leadership. I played guitar and often led liturgical services on weekends. I continued to sing with the Fathers Four Barbershop Quartet at various diocesan and parish doings, state conventions, hospitals, and even the Milwaukee House of Corrections.
In August 1981, I resigned from the March of Dimes and was hired as a Sales Rep with the Wausau Insurance Companies which insured commercial businesses. I hit an early home run when I met a man who owned and ran an electrical supply firm in Milwaukee. I told him I could save him thousands of dollars if he allowed me to review all his insurance coverages. Wausau Insurance would provide him with a Book of Coverage explaining each coverage compared to his current coverage, including prices. He agreed.
I spent an afternoon reviewing his firm’s coverages, sent the review to Wausau, and within ten days presented the owner with a beautiful Book of Coverages explaining each coverage. The total cost saved him thousands of dollars. He was thrilled. I was the star of the week.
But wherever I went in Milwaukee and the surrounding suburbs, most businesses had already been carded by a Wausau Rep, some of them two or three years old. When I asked my manager, he said there was nothing he could do. I went over his head to the Director. I told him I was willing to share any sales I got with the rep who carded it, and he told me to go for it. My manager was unhappy that I went over his head. Each month, every rep had to fill out a worksheet explaining who they had taken to lunch, who they had played golf with, etc. It was built on creative thinking.
One day, the Director told me, “Mike, there’s a sales opening in Janesville, WI, a city of 65,000 people. If you were interested, Wausau Insurance will help your family move there, and they will give you a company car.”
I said, “It sounds very interesting. Let me talk it over with my wife, and I will get back to you.”
Sue and I even visited Janesville. We were impressed by the schools and the parks. The Janesville Office was nice; it had only one other sales rep, plus an office manager.
About three days later, I met with the Milwaukee Wausau Director and said, “My wife and I visited Janesville and the Office there. It looks great. I will accept the job.”
We moved to Janesville and rented a nice home. I was eager to become a Wausau Rep in a new territory. I visited lots of businesses and spoke with many people. I learned most of the manufacturers in Janesville were self-insured, so I focused on Monroe, a city of about 10,000 people, roughly 35 miles from Janesville.
I called on the Joseph Huber Brewing Company of Monroe, Wisconsin. The manager was very busy, but he became interested when I said, “I am impressed with the various beers Huber makes. I can save your Company well over $100,000 a year if you allow me to review all your insurance coverages. I will then present you with a Book of Coverages from the Wausau Insurance Companies, showing you where and how much Wausau will save you each year.”
He said, “It sounds interesting. I’ll think about it.”
Then he called the Head Brew Master to give me a tour of the brewery. The Brew Master was a roly-poly, smiling guy who started me out in the tasting room with a fine stemmed glass of their award-winning Augsburger beer. He poured and drank three glasses to my one, and we agreed the beer was exceptional. The brewery was modern and productive, as they made beer for places like the Berghoff (a famous German Restaurant in the Chicago Loop), Rhinelander beer, various other Wisconsin beers, and their own Huber beer.
The second time I called on the Huber Brewing Company, the manager welcomed me, brought me into a private office, and sat me down at a large desk that overflowed with a pile of various insurance coverages. He said, “Knock yourself out.”
It took me hours to write down the various business insurance names, companies, coverages, and prices. I had dozens of pages in my notebook. I assured the manager and told him, “I will be back in ten days or so with a Book of Coverages.”
When I returned to Huber’s with the impressive Book of Coverages that offered savings of well over $100,000, the manager looked it over carefully. Then he said,
“Mike, what you have here is very impressive, but we are insured with a half-dozen companies. They are all my friends. I can’t simply drop them all at once.”
I said, “I understand. But if you give me your Workers’ Compensation Coverage, where Wausau Insurance can save you over $60,000 a year, we will work on the rest of the coverages down the road.”
He shook my hand and said, “OK.” This time, he drank a glass of Augsburger beer with the Brew Master and me. My manager was unhappy that I had only sold the Workers’ Comp coverage.
I called on a large Trucking Company in Monroe and offered to save it close to $100,000 in insurance coverages each year if it allowed me to review all its coverages and bring back a Book of Coverages from Wausau Insurance.
He said “OK,” and had all their business coverages brought in and piled on a desk.
I reviewed them, made extensive notes, and sent it all up to Wausau. My greedy manager, seeing all the money Wausau could save the owner of the Trucking company. now pressed me to offer the owner the entire package or nothing. When the owner read the Book of Coverages, he was impressed, but he also said, “I have been insured with four different companies for years, and I play golf with the agents who represent them.”
I said, “I understand. But you are in the business of making money. My package of coverages will save your company close to $100,000 a year. My boss says it’s all or nothing. Our coverage is exceptional, our service is outstanding.”
The owner shook his head, handed me back the Book of Coverages, and in a strong voice, said, “I’m sorry.” I could have strangled my boss for not letting me sell at least a part of the coverage.
In the meantime, I began to attend various Protestant churches in Janesville: Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Assembly of God Faith communities. I am a singer, and people in every church quickly urged me to join their choirs, which, in many cases, I did. However, I found their spiritual messages a little simplistic and prepared to rejoin the Catholic Church. I also directed the Janesville Men’s Barbershop Chorus for several years. I met many wonderful people in Janesville.
One day, I called the Swiss Colony Corporate Office in Monroe, Wisconsin. Swiss Colony was America’s number one food gift company since 1926, with some 600 outlets all over the United States. They sold cheeses, sausages, hams, hand-crafted baked goods, and confections.
One of the owners said, “Mike, we are interested in your reviewing our business insurance coverages with Wausau Insurance.” But the Wheel of Life began to turn again for the Murphy family.
In early 1984, my wife happened to visit a small Medical Equipment supplier one day, owned by a Chinese American. He invited her in, took a phone call, and his other phone rang. My wife (who was a professional secretary and an experienced Office Manager) answered it, took notes in shorthand, and said she would have the owner return the call as soon as possible, thanked him for calling, and hung up.
The owner stood up, shook her hand, and said, “You are hired immediately.” But Sue found out a few days later that the company was expanding and planning to move to the western edge of O’Hare Airport in Chicago. He would help our family move. After talking it over, we agreed to move to Illinois and chose Schaumburg for its excellent schools.
Illinois has a life, health, business, and liability coverage rule book three times as thick as Wisconsin’s, so I studied long and hard. I passed all the insurance tests the first time. Now I was an Insurance Broker, someone who could offer any size business or manufacturing company whatever insurance coverages they needed, at the best price.
I needed to find an insurance brokerage firm to work for. The problem was that, due to many large lawsuits against insurance companies in Chicago, no one was hiring at the moment. 1984 was beginning to look like a real challenge for me. I visited many large retail stores, but I had too much education for what they were looking for.
To make things even more difficult, after ten years of marriage, my wife became frustrated. She told me, “I think you are too much of a dreamer, and I have decided to divorce you.”
She hired the second most powerful divorce attorney in Chicago, while I could only afford an inexperienced attorney. Her lawyer arrived in a new grey Jaguar, dressed to the nines in a grey three-piece suit, while mine wore an old blue suit jacket and a pair of wrinkled tan slacks. She paid her guy $2,000. I paid mine $500. The judge greeted her attorney by name and allowed him to use the judge’s chambers to finish typing the divorce papers. My attorney wrote his defense in a three-ring binder with a ballpoint pen.
Her attorney got my ex everything we owned together, and I was ordered to pay $500 a month in alimony/child support until her oldest daughter entered college, when it would be adjusted downwards. My attorney never even asked a question.
I moved into a cheap, one-room apartment in Elgin, Illinois, complete with a studio couch, a chair, and a lamp at one end of the room, with a small stove, a small refrigerator, and a small table and chairs at the other. At least it had a bathroom with a shower. When my young son and daughter visited, we slept together on the floor on the couch cushions, with my feet hanging out.
It was another challenging time, but I remembered seeing a poster that read: “SIX TIMES DOWN, SEVEN TIMES UP!” When Floyd Patterson was knocked down in a heavyweight boxing match with Ingmar Johannson, he got back up each time, but lost the heavyweight title. However, in the rematch, Floyd trained long and hard and managed to knock Igmar out and regain the title. That motivated me, along with my lifelong practice of faith, hope, and prayer.
In March of 1984, I landed a Sales Rep job with J & R Sales & Installation. The owner was a former NFL starting linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers for three or four years until a serious leg injury ended his football career.
The sales position was to call on the Engineering Departments of hospitals and large nursing homes in Chicago and surrounding areas, selling hard floor coverings (making it easier for wheelchairs and hospital beds to get around), colored wall coverings, corridor railings, protective corner guards, and custom nursing stations. The company had a couple of professional installers to put the new materials in place. Ed and his wife interviewed me, and we hit it off immediately. They would pay my mileage and basic needs until I began to make sales. I accepted the position.
I put on a lot of miles each day, calling on Engineering Departments in hospitals and large nursing homes. I began to make sales, as our products were modern and durable, helping to upgrade the hospitals and nursing homes. Ed handled the Chicago area, and I focused on the one-hundred-fifty-some suburbs. I was doing all right financially, but the driving in Chicago and its suburbs was gruesome. Winters were the worst. There had to be something where I didn’t have to travel. There was.
In June of 1985, I landed a job selling new cars (Pontiacs) at Heritage Auto Village of Elgin. The dealership sold six lines of cars: Buicks, Pontiacs, Merkurs (a German sports car), Mazdas, Mitsubishis, and GMC trucks. I was pretty good at selling new Pontiacs, and I received several plaques honoring me as Salesman of the Month, etc.
I moved into a better Elgin apartment. I could drive any car I wanted, always trying to sell it to onlookers, especially loaded 6000s, Firebirds, and Trans-Ams. My kids loved riding in the powerful and racy Trans-Ams. A couple of years flew by. A new opportunity suddenly appeared.
In July 1989, I met a man who ran a recruiting business out of his home office in Flossmoor, IL, H & H Associates. He was earning over three hundred thousand dollars a year recruiting and placing Actuaries. Actuaries set the rates for large insurance companies, investment firms, and big banks. I understood making endless phone calls, as I had worked for Management Recruiters of Brookfield, Wisconsin, for a year in 1978, recruiting engineers, salespeople, and metallurgists in foundries, forges, and metal casting.
I decided to aim financially higher and went to work in his fine basement office, recruiting and placing Actuaries all around the country. My title was Manager. The owner was the only other employee. It took dozens of cold calls every day all over the country to recruit an actuary, but it was thrilling to place one in a new company and receive a check for fifty or sixty thousand dollars or more. I got half the check, the owner got the other half. It was a grueling, daily grind. After a single year, I began looking for something more interesting.
The Wheel of Life suddenly turned for me again in 1989. I attended an information meeting in Chicago for hospital chaplains, and my spiritual past came back to life. Visiting my parents in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, I noticed an ad for a Chaplaincy Training Group that was to begin at St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay.
I called the training supervisor, and she told me the training classes had already begun a week earlier, but she invited me in for an interview. Learning of my past as a priest, a teacher, a sales rep, etc., she said, “I will make a place for you if you can start in two weeks.”
I said, “Yes.” Then I had to scramble to leave all Chicago opportunities behind. My elderly parents welcomed me to live with them until I got settled in.
Roughly two years of training as a hospital chaplain was challenging, but right up my alley. I was soon assigned as a Student Chaplain to Holy Family Hospital in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, about thirty miles south of Kewaunee, both communities along the western edge of Lake Michigan. The spirit of the hospital was wonderful, and the staff were very welcoming. I was on site four days a week for daytime service and one day at St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay for ongoing training.
In the second year, I was assigned to the Lutheran Homes complex in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Lutheran Homes was a series of retirement buildings and patient partial and full-care buildings. I was assigned to the new circular building for women who had dementia. I loved it. I played guitar and sang with the ladies, and visited them one-on-one two days a week.
I was also assigned to St. Paul Retirement Home in Kaukauna one day a week for more chaplaincy training and occasional visits with residents and patients. Fridays were back to St. Vincent Hospital for personal reporting and further training and testing towards certification as a hospital chaplain.
At last, it appeared my future was falling into place. The nun, who was our chaplaincy trainer, was one of the Lead Chaplains at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee. She invited me in for an interview and showed me the giant hospital, with all its specialized departments, including the transplant department. She added that while the hospital is on 27th and Oklahoma, the hospital owned an apartment building at 60th and Oklahoma where I would have a one-bedroom apartment for $120 a month and simply ride the city buses, which went up and down Oklahoma Ave. every fifteen minutes, back and forth to work.
She said, “We will start you in the cancer wing, and later move you to other specialty wings. All I need from you is a Letter of Acceptance.”
I said, “I accept the position, and I will send you a Letter of Acceptance.” I told her I could start right after Labor Day. It was now early July. She agreed. But toward the end of July, life dealt me another card.
My parents, in their late 80s, called a family meeting in their home five miles northwest of Kewaunee. My brother, four sisters, and I gathered around the kitchen table to hear my parents say they did not want to lose their home, but that neither one of them could drive safely any longer.
In short order, it became apparent I was the only one who had the willingness to become the chief live-in caretaker for my parents. Another chapter of my life opened up.
I notified St. Luke’s Hospital that I had to turn down their offer of Hospital Chaplain so I could take care of my elderly parents. In the fall of 1998, I became a Hospice Chaplain for the Visiting Nurse Associates of Wisconsin, North District, which meant visiting terminally ill patients in homes, nursing homes, CBRFs, and hospitals in the counties of Brown, Kewaunee, Door, Manitowoc, and Shawano, Wisconsin. That position lasted until the spring of 2000.
In August, 1999, a brand new trauma II hospital, Aurora BayCare Medical Center, opened its doors in Green Bay. Rev. Linda Pliska, the former pastor of First Methodist in Green Bay, was the only chaplain and, by spring, needed some help.
I visited the hospital and met Chaplain Linda, and we hit it off right away. I agreed to become a Co-Chaplain with her while continuing to care for my parents. By late spring of 2000, Rev. Linda told me that she had decided to retire.
She said, “I encouraged the hospital to hire you as the full-time Head Chaplain.”
Excitedly, I said “Yes” to Chaplain Linda, and so it went.
As Head Chaplain, I had to hire seven additional chaplains to help cover days, night calls, days off, and vacation days for me. We ended up with six chaplains. I loved being a chaplain. I held periodic memorial services for people who had lost a loved one in the hospital. I received calls from people who wanted me to perform marriages or funerals for them, but I had allowed my pastoral license to lapse, so I either performed the music or gave a talk at weddings and funerals. Ten years went by like a blink.
My father died in February of 2000 at age ninety-two. I moved into an apartment a few miles from home for a year before moving to an apartment on the northeast side of Green Bay. It made it easier for me to work at Aurora Bay Care, especially taking occasional night calls. My youngest sister Brigid, moved in to take care of my mother. My mother died in January of 2008, seven days short of age one hundred two.
As a hospital chaplain, I took as much training as I could, becoming a Rehab Support Group Facilitator, a Grief Support Group Facilitator, a trained Power of Attorney for Health Care Facilitator, an effective team player, leader, and manager, an effective collaborator on interdisciplinary health care teams, an experienced trauma care chaplain, head of the Employee Spirituality Committee, and a presenter at New Employee Orientations.
I offered spiritual and pastoral care in a non-denominational health care facility. My only regret was failing to quality toward my Certification as a Hospital Chaplain, as I mailed my qualification papers in one week too late. I was told I would have to wait another year before trying again. I simply forgot about Certification as I was very busy visiting patients and talking with staff. I did receive the Hospital Spirituality Award from Planetree the second year it was a hospital goal.
I retired from Aurora BayCare Medical Center in 2010, after ten years of service. I had received a B.A. degree in Religious Studies from St. Norbert College in 1976 (4. average). I was now free to become the writer I had envisioned becoming for many years. I continued reading widely in theology and scripture, adding other disciplines like psychology, history, economics, political science, spirituality, ethics, and sociology.
In 2015, I earned a Master of Theological Studies from St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wisconsin. My thesis was called “Awakening the Sleeping Giant,” aimed at the Catholic Church and its patriarchal emphasis on obedience and orthodoxy, rather than orthopraxy (practice) and orthopathy (spirituality), following the loving, welcoming message of Jesus the Christ.
I had gotten married to a lovely woman in 2014. Colleen had raised two fine children. A divorcee, she had been abused by two former husbands. She also had many health problems, including being bipolar, which meant she had good, creative days, and bad days, being depressed, and thinking about suicide. I tried to help her balance things. She had a fine singing voice and was very artistic.
We even began to pray together. But when her pain pills ran out, she turned to drinking gin. On June 4, 2017, four days before our third Anniversary, she unexpectedly died. I don’t believe she killed herself; her psychiatrist wasn’t much help, and had dropped her as a patient a couple of weeks earlier when she missed a second appointment that spring. I spoke at her funeral, calling her my “angel with a broken wing.”
In August 2017, I moved into an outstanding apartment complex on the eastern edge of Shawano, Wisconsin, about thirty miles west of Green Bay. I was working on my first book RECHRISTENING AMERICAN CHRISTIANS. My apartment looked out on a large pond often filled with ducks and geese, a great place for contemplation, music, reading, and writing.
One evening, late 2017, I went to Sacred Heart Catholic Church to join their choir. There at the organ sat Mary, a lovely, mature, grey-haired woman with a cherubic smile. She knew almost everyone in Shawano; her first husband had owned a bar for a couple of years. She had raised nine children, and gradually, I began going out with Mary. All her children accepted me. The interesting thing is, with most of her sons and daughters living in Wisconsin, there are loads of birthdays, anniversaries, school events, etc., to attend. It keeps all of us close together.
For the last twenty years or so, I have been the Spiritual Advisor for various parish Conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, beginning in Green Bay. The Society, which serves the poor and needy, is worldwide. When a good friend of mine from Marinette, WI, Jeanne Harper, became President of the St. Vincent de Paul Society for the Diocese of Green Bay, she telephoned me.
“Mike,” she said, “I am the new President of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for the Green Bay Diocese. I would like you to become our Diocesan Spiritual Advisor.”
“Jeanne, you need either a priest or a deacon.”
She responded, “I need you.”
So I said “All right, I will do it.”
A few years later, when Jeanne became a National Vice President and Head of the six-state North Central District of the Society, she asked me to become the North Central District Spiritual Advisor. I agreed and did that for three years, writing articles on spirituality for various Diocesan Vincentian Councils, and even giving a talk on Spirituality one year at a National Convention of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. Then I retired from the position and returned to being a simple Parish Conference Spiritual Advisor, which I am to this day.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is run entirely by Catholic lay people (not ordained), exists for two main reasons: one, for each member to become more holy; and two, to help provide for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, and the needy with our compassionate hearts, and the money raised from donations and Vincentian thrift stores.
The Society exists in some one hundred fifty countries, has a membership of almost 800,000 volunteer members. Here in the United States, there are some 4,500 parish Conferences, with a membership of around 100,000 volunteers. It has been a life-changing experience for me to meet the poor and the needy in their own homes. Vincentians always visit in groups of two, and we try to help people with material, financial, and spiritual assistance of one kind or another. We are simply a network of friends, men and women, who are inspired by gospel values to share the love of Christ in a humble, welcoming, non-judgmental way.
As you can see, I have had many different jobs and met many people, often in unique situations. Over the years, I have continued to read theology, scripture, and spirituality.
I am willing to listen to you as you talk about your spiritual needs, questions, or problems. If you wish, I will offer suggestions that may help you lift your head and your heart as you continue life’s journey. Our lives all change as we develop our faith relationship with Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, and our maturing, non-judgmental love inspires us to serve Friends-in-need.