I am an ordained priest in the Anglican tradition, currently serving in the Anglican Church of Canada, and having been ordained in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle, Washington, which is where my faith first began to flourish.) This does not say everything about who I am as a religious person, but it points towards a part of it.
I came to be ordained via a combination of strange circumstances and serious work; probably every good thing is like that, and certainly I have found being ordained to be a profound blessing to me, and a source of good challenges, of things that have led me to the places where I need to grow.
That's probably how the whole spiritual life should be: enriching, but also challenging. Religious practice should not be a burden, but something which comes naturally, something desirable, something which we at least yearn to come easily to us.
From what comes naturally to us, we then are enticed onwards, we experience tantilizing glimpses of there being something more. It is challenging to make our way to that next place, to that more place, but the challenge is worth it, because it feels like we will end up somewhere yet more real in doing so, although we know there is more work beyond that. It's a practice that way. It makes demands of us in that way.
However that process begins, it leads us into profound encounter with the sublime, with the exquisite, with the transcendent. We gradually develop a fully-formed sense that there are things about us which no one can take from us, which the world cannot destroy. We encounter the holy, and find ourselves standing before it. We find that there is something of the holy haunting us, too. We find that holiness in others, in our relationships with them, and in the whole world around us.
This is how we live into the world more deeply, into ourselves more deeply, and come to live more fully. That never ends, but is always the beginning, and that is the spiritual life.
I find it a profound privilege and delight to make Christianity my home for that life, with the complexity and the beauty of the theological tradition, and the endless, generative reality into which the mysteries, the sacraments, lead us. Sharing that experience with others, and helping others to experience that reality, is the best thing in the world.
Sharing the sacraments, preaching about the life of faith, and walking with others in their own journeys is a joy.
In my work in the Church more generally, I have given and continue to give talks and offer workshops on a variety of things connected to living the spiritual life, and the development of the theological imagination. Among the subjects I speak about are these:
I refer to myself as a stray priest, in that part of the defining character of my ministry has been being involved in a number of places, and in a number of different ways. I serve in the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia and live on Salt Spring Island. I preach and preside regularly in parishes throughout Vancouver Island, particularly in Greater Victoria.
I am the convener of the Anglican Fellowship of St. Gregory of Nyssa, a small, experimental religious community on Salt Spring Island which focuses on spiritual development and formation. We are developing a model for Christian community which responds to several acute needs in the modern world:
What exactly that looks like is flexible and dynamic, responding to our current needs and resources; this is what it means for us to be an experimental community.
I also serve on the Diocesan Council of the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, as the elected clergy representative for the Saanich Peninsula and Gulf Islands.
Previously, I have served with the following congregations and communities on an ongoing basis:
If you wish to be in touch with me in a religious context, I can be contacted by E-Mail through the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia. I have limited availability for speaking, workshops, congregational development consulting, and writing engagements. If I am in your area, and am available, I will always take the opportunity to celebrate the sacraments and preach.