Spiritual practice is integral to transformation.
All of us yearn to live more fully. Whether the change we hope for is interpersonal or intrapersonal, how we live is shaped by what we practice. Learning to draw sustenance from a deep well of spirituality is far from inconsequential; it is bound up with the healing and liberation we desire—in our own lives and in the world around us.
My story and work is found at the intersection of the inner life and outer engagement. Through resources to locate a spiritual center and examine shadows, Center & Shadow empowers those seeking to become whole.
My Story & Practice
My work—in one form or another—has always been Spirit-centered.
For several years, I led ecumenical multi-generational missions in some of the most impoverished settings across the US: introducing teens and families to friends in blighted urban neighborhoods, Native American reservations, and the hollers of Appalachia; later I facilitated restorative justice efforts as a specialist in Chicago Public Schools. Those years instilled in me a commitment to justice and equity, and led me to supporting national faith-based mobilizing efforts at Sojourners.
Through the difficulties and traumas of movement work and divorce, contemplative practice yet again kept my grounded.
Before completing the Master of Divinity degree at Yale Divinity School, followed by ordination to sacred orders in The Episcopal Church, I trained in conflict transformation studies. Experience in social change anchors my work, and I have been especially fortunate to live alongside and learn from diverse communities and traditions. As a priest, I am privileged to serve in the Church, equipping and empowering Episcopal communities for flourishing faith; as a spiritual director trained in the traditions of mystic Christianity and Jungian psychology I am honored to accompany others in their spiritual path, religiously affiliated or not, bearing witness to the ever new and ongoing work of Spirit in their lives.
Again and again, in times of great need, contemplative spirituality has extended to me a sorely needed lifeline.
I inherited a religion of obedience. Now, much might be said of midwest fundamentalism in the 90s, in part that it instilled a foundation for lifelong seeking, but of primary concern was control—and in that container spiritual abuse flourished.
Fear is one powerful force. It's an effective motivator, to be sure: though it knows little of joyful living, of freedom, of faith.
Since before I have memory to recall, I have hungered for the divine. The system of certainty I learned though did little to lead me; it turns out rigid certainty is a pretty poor compass for navigating the realities of life: its inevitable disappointments and devastations, alongside its many great delights, too. In the contemplative tradition—with its commitments to silence, stillness, and solitude—I discovered something expansive. Something generative for which my parched soul had yearning.
And the slow work of healing began its work on my soul.
I believe Spirit animates our lives. And this is central to my understanding of spiritual practice: learning to live and move and find one's being within Spirit.
Interests
—Martin Luther King Jr.
and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...
I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be,
tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
[We] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
Interests
Interests
Healing
Racial truth-telling
Social healing
Trauma
Integration
Anxiety
Enneagram / MBTI
Masculinity + vulnerability
Reconstructing religious identity
Ritual
Centering Prayer
Circle processes
Poetry as liturgy