Thank you both.
I hit new issues trying these options. When I tried to reboot in Safe Mode by holding the shift key during bootup, my iMac would get to the Apple logo screen and the progress bar would get to the end but the machine would never boot. I tried to shutdown the machine and try the same technique but got the same result. I tried to unplug the machine for 30 seconds or more and try the same technique but got the same result.
I tried using the Terminal as described at the bottom of this article:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063, but got this error message: "nvram: Error setting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) not permitted"
I then tried to reset the NVRAM and PRAM using the steps here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063, but that did not work either.
So I have not yet verified that Safe Mode fixes the issue because I have not been able to boot into Safe Mode. Not sure what other options I have.
Thank you again for your help with this.