Five years away from a pension, Rev. Eddie Rodriguez walked away from a long career and security with Bellsouth, and stepped onto the path that would lead him to the “meaning and purpose” he had been looking for. For the last twenty years, while based in southern Florida, he has worked worldwide and throughout the United States as an interfaith minister – officiating weddings, creating special ceremonies for children, and presiding over funeral and memorial services – and also as a workshop leader, inspirational speaker and personal empowerment/life coach, “As an Interfaith Minister,” he has said, “I am challenged to find what we all share in common, regardless of different religious beliefs and cultures, and that is Love. The love we yearn to give and to receive.”
It was his profound connection to the book Conversations with God by Neal Donald Walsch that spurred Rodriguez to make the change, and to embark on a personal journey that led him to become Rev. Eddie. “I remembered the words my teacher Neale Donald Walsch, ‘it is not about making a living but making a life,’ and after all, ‘life begins at the end of your comfort zone’.” Rodriguez went on to found and direct the Conversations with God Spiritual Center of Miami from 2000 to 2004, and he continues teaching workshops and classes exploring the Conversations with God material.
“Taking a risk was at the heart of beginning my career as an Interfaith Minister,” Rodriguez says. He soon realized that “the key to success for me …was to approach every client, every student, everyone I worked with as if they were family.” This sense of connection and inclusiveness is at the heart of his joy: “Ordained as an Interfaith minister gives me a wonderful window into the richness of different cultural and religious experiences…any combination you can think of I’ve joined them in marriage. I always ask folks to focus not on our differences but on the one thing we all have in common, the desire to love and be loved.” For Miami Beach’s Centennial Celebration in 2015, soon after legalization of same-sex marriage in the state, Rodriguez was invited to officiate an open mass marriage ceremony where he pronounced 50 couples “husband and husband, wife and wife, and husband and wife.”
Whether he’s supporting couples preparing their wedding vows, or coaching business people to become more effective in their work, Rodriguez describes himself as “an expert in mindset and using the power of imagination to focus on what one desires and wants.” Drawing upon the depth and commitment he has had to his own life journey, Rodriguez seeks to assist “people in getting clear and becoming conscious in order to enable them to create their best life.”
Rev. Eddie has appeared on Bravo, MTV, Lifetime, the Primer Impacto and Vida Total television shows and has been featured in Ocean Drive Magazine, Natural Awakenings, The Miami Herald and Conversations, the international publication of the CwG Foundation.
Join us in conversation with Rev. Eddie Rodriguez.
