six to carry the casket and one to say the mass

Six to carry the casket and one to say the mass: reflections on life, identity, and moving forward offers the unique opportunity for its readers to start a new dialogue, take an active hand in creating culture and reshaping the world, and think about making meaning from formative experiences and relationships. From family dynamics and professional challenges that bolstered and battered him to the TV shows, films, books, and people who impacted his queer identity, Bill deconstructs the world that he inherited and begins to reconstruct the person he wants to become through short, poignant, thought-provoking, and frequently hilarious essays. The post-2020 world revealed to Bill that social transformation only comes with individual choices. If he wanted the world to change, he had to truthfully and compassionately understand how choices made long ago brought him to this moment and how the choices he makes now shape the future.

This book is not didactic or instructional; not self-help or psychology; not academic philosophy or cultural criticism. It is an exercise in honesty and a portrait of Bill, his family, and how we construct multiple identities—sexual, religious, philosophical, political, familial, relational—without reducing them to a monolithic whole, without being argumentative.

For anyone looking to make meaning out of their lives and the world around them, this book offers a model.

Bill Hulseman is a ritual designer and wedding officiant. Previously a teacher, campus minister, program director, and middle school principal in independent schools, he holds a BA in religious studies from Fairfield University, an MTS in the comparative study of religion from Harvard Divinity School, and an EdM in education leadership from the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. He lives in Seattle with his husband, Jonathon. Six to carry the casket and one to say the mass is his first book.