Fadulu: Did your parents talk to you about their jobs often?

Burton: My mom talked a lot about not necessarily her job, but her belief that one’s life should be a service to the greater community. That was certainly something I picked up and absorbed. Most of the people in my family are in the field of education in one way or another. It’s kind of the family business. We are also a family that really values education, puts a very high premium on education and its value in society and for individuals. I personally believe that education is the key to freedom.

Actually, literacy is the key to freedom because you can educate yourself. But my mom didn’t talk a lot about her job, because she worked in a [federal program] that at that time was called AFDC. AFDC stood for Aid to Families With Dependent Children, so she worked with a lot of women who were then, as today, escaping situations that involved abuse, and she was really trying to help these women and their families get back on their feet after some catastrophic event that had obviously caused them to lose their balance. She didn’t talk about those cases specifically, because, No. 1, it was inappropriate because that’s confidential information and, No. 2, it wasn’t age-appropriate conversation either.

Fadulu: As a child, you were hearing about the importance of serving the greater community and of education. Did you ever push back on those life philosophies?

Burton: You did not push back where Irma Jean Christian was concerned. I’m sorry, that was just not an option. I don’t know how you were raised, but in my family, we did not push back on our mother. My first career choice was the Catholic priesthood.

Fadulu: Can you tell me a little bit about entering the seminary to become a priest?

Burton: It was all initiated by me. I had a calling. I felt like that’s how I was destined to spend my life, and so I took steps as early as I could in that direction, and my mom was very supportive. I entered the Catholic seminary at the age of 13 in Northern California. I began my formal training as an initiate into the order of the Society of the Divine Savior. I was there for four years. During my time there it actually shifted its focus from being solely a seminary to also being a college-preparatory program.

Fadulu: What is the most important thing you learned from your four years in seminary?

Burton: That I didn’t want to be a priest. I had a lay teacher who was neither a priest nor a brother who taught my favorite subjects, a man named Lee Bartlett. He was the English teacher, he was the drama coach, he also taught philosophy, and he opened up my mind to ways of looking at the world that were separate from the Catholic point of view, and a lot of it made sense to me. I had a lot of questions that the Catholic saints and the dogma of the Church could not answer. So I decided that I needed to find some other focus for my life at the ripe old age of 17.