Tom Boechat

Tom Boechat is the original producer of Portraits in Faith and we all owe him a debt of gratitude. It was Tom who studied with my photography instructor, David H. Wells, and whom David recommended I connect up with when I went to Brazil. Tom found some amazing people in São Paolo for me to interview and he became a friend and a voice of spiritual clarity. He sees beyond dogma and religion. Tom grew up the son of a Baptist minister and, as he once said to me, he had to “forget all the bullshit” he was taught and “remember what the true message of Jesus’s teachings were.”

Tom is an atheist and yet his interview is my favorite in the whole project. Why? Because Tom beautifully explains that faith is a choice to live a life that emphasizes sacredness and not being focused on the self. Most people are shocked to hear him say that we created God, but I think it is a beautiful realization because in the end, faith is how we choose to live and act.

Because the original Portraits in Faith project did not include interviews, I returned to Brazil specifically to interview all the people six years later, including Tom. Rarely do we get to see such a longitudinal view of someone’s faith journey. Returning to be with Tom and to be able to get his thoughts on video was a great blessing. I will always be grateful to Tom Boechat for helping me create Portraits in Faith, and for his lifelong friendship, his sense of humor, and his reverence for the force that makes life meaningful and sacred.