Varg was ordained as a minister in 2011 with the purpose of providing ministerial and spiritual ceremonies for his mostly secular social group. Having always been a spiritual seeker but also agnostic and humanist in his beliefs, Varg hoped to provide for his peers a figure who could perform the procedural and customary duties of marriages, blessings and eulogies, without the dogma and doctrine major religions enforce.
“Most people I know love and embrace the community and culture church provides but they are also free thinkers and eschew the precepts of most organized religions. These folks still need someone to perform their ceremonies though, to conjure thought and inspire an appreciation of our Universe despite the drudgery and cruelties within.”
Since being ordained, Varg has written more than 175 sermons, 25 wedding nuptials, several dozen toasts and house blessings and, unfortunately, three eulogies. All are wholly original and have been performed before congregations as small as two and as large as 300.
“I wanted to make sure people knew I wasn’t just someone who filled out a form online and became a “reverend” despite that being precisely what I did. I wanted to do more. I sought to create a small mythos based on Humanism, the experience of being alive and living in our Universe. I wanted people to know there was a meaning behind the words I was writing and performing. Spiritual thinking and critical thought don’t have to be exclusive of each other. Love can’t be explained by science. Beauty can’t. Laughter can’t. It’s up to the Humanist to engage and embrace that which science and religion leave out.”
Varg’s marriage ceremonies are customized for each couple and he utilizes skills he developed writing feature stories as a journalist in his previous career. He also includes a special piece of art made only for the couple which hangs on an antique pulpit during the ceremony. He has been commended for his delivery and the personal touches he brings to each service.
“I really love the whole process of the wedding ceremonies. The initial meeting with the couple, the establishing of their personal narratives, the writing of the ceremony. Then I make them a very nice piece of art and we do the thing. Performing ceremonies is really a culmination of my life’s work because it requires writing, performing and aesthetics, not to mention some skills I picked up from the hospitality industry way back in the day. I have attended a lot of weddings and you learn a thing or two about them after a while what to say, when to say it, so forth. I bring that knowledge and a little beauty and thought to every ceremony I perform.”