DAMARISCOTTA — Spiritual and earthly journeys have defined Daniel Bliss’ 101 years.

A 500-mile trip on horseback from Beirut to Jerusalem led him to a life in the ministry, shaping a mind that was ahead of its time when it comes to tolerance and social awareness.

Today he lives in the Schooner Cove retirement complex, near the coast not far from the house in Georgetown where he and his family have spent summers beginning in the 1920s. He celebrated his 101st birthday on March 15.

Born in Upper Montclair, N.J., he was the son of a Congregational minister. “When I was 3 years old, he accepted the position of president of American University of Beirut, Lebanon,” Bliss said. His earliest memories are of the Middle East.

Bliss’ boyhood tour of the Holy Land from Beirut to Jerusalem on horseback — 500 miles round trip — with five other, shaped his spiritual views. The leader of the journey became a mentor for him, inspiring him to enter the ministry.

Bliss returned to the United States to attend prep school in 1914, then entered Amherst College. He took a year off to train to fight in World War I, but the war ended before he had the chance.

After graduation he returned to Beirut to teach high school students. There he met his future wife to whom he was married for 60 years.

Bliss then attended Union Theological Seminary in New York. “I’ve been a Congregational minister ever since.” He served a church in Monson, Mass., and then was associate minister at the Old South Church in Boston, where he spent six years.

“The Depression hit,” he remembered. “All the churches had a hard time. The Old South Church was lucky in that they had an endowment that was enough to keep it going at the same level work as they had before.”

People in the community suffered, though. “It was mostly food that they ran out of,” he said, and the church was active filling the needs.

The next assignment was a church in Greenwich, Conn. A chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in his church. “My conviction was that they were good as anybody else and should be treated that way,” he said.

The Greenwich church was the third church in the country to set up an Alcoholics Anonymous program. “We would serve them coffee and doughnuts, and have a meeting.”

Some church members were not so keen on the program. “Some didn’t think it was our job. Then whose job was it?” he asked rhetorically, a flash of indignation on his face.

When World War II began, Bliss faced a dilemma.

“I was against war, so I didn’t actually go into the Army or Air Force, but as a minister, [I felt] I ought to do something toward eliminating that guy Hitler. I was certainly against him.” So, in his 40s, he entered the chaplaincy. He was sent again to Fort Lee in Virginia, and never left the States, but was kept busy counseling service members.

Earlier in his life Bliss wrote another book, an account of Jesus’ life told through the eyes of a fictional follower.

With the help of his son and daughter, he is writing a book about his first 25 years. The work keeps him focused. “Those 25 years, there’s been some amazing developments in history,” he said, listing airplanes, radio and movies as some of the technological advances that have most impressed him.

A copy of Astronomy magazine lay on a table near the chair Bliss sat in. Asked about his interest in the subject, he grew animated.

“Astronomy is a new science. I think they will find planets that hold life. That’s the only regret I have about not living until the first man gets to Mars. I’d like to live long enough to see humans get to Mars,” he said wistfully.