It was a great honor to interview Dr. Alexander John Shaia for the third and final piece of my multi-genre project. His teachings on the four paths of the Journey of Transformation have been instrumental to me. I have learned so much from him as my own mentor, that I just had to bring his teaching forward directly to my audience.

Dr. Shaia’s work is known as Quadratos, the four-path journey of transformation. In his seminal work, Radical Transformation: The Four-Gospel Journey of Heart and Mind, Dr. Shaia aligns Joseph Campbell’s map of the hero’s journey to the Catholic reading progression of the four gospels of the Christian New Testament. In the interview we discuss how the gospel of Matthew beckons us up the “Mountain of Change,” Mark takes us across the “Sea of Suffering,” John invites us into the “Garden of Joy,” and Luke leads us down the “Road of Service.

It is through Alexander Shaia’s teaching that I am able to begin answering my deeper questions about the Journey of Transformation. Based on Campbell’s description of the Hero’s Journey as “the one great story going on everywhere across all time,” Shaia understands the Journey to be a universal pattern inherent in all of us, spanning time and culture and gender. We also undertake the Journey many times in our lives, as much as we are open to growth and change.

I hope you enjoy this interview and find the conversation interesting. It my pleasure to present to you, Dr. Alexander John Shaia.