Reflections on Downward Mobility
As a 42-year-old-stay-at-home-dad-priest-without-a-parish-with-two-Harvard-degrees, I’ve been thinking about downward mobility. I learned the term in my 20s reading Henri Nouwen and New Monastic books about a discipleship path for white middle-class folks like myself. . . .
To Kneel in the Soil: Responding to a Climate Generation in Crisis
For the last few years, I’ve stored away in the basement of my heart words from a ten-year-old girl at my church: “I hope I’m dead before it gets really bad.” She was referring to the climate crisis. . . .
Moving to the Family Farm: Can I Work for Racial Justice When I Live on a Dirt Road?
On the day that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, I taught my last Zoom class on Ignatian discernment at the Episcopal parish in Brattleboro, Vermont, where my tenure as an assistant priest was ending. . . .
Husband, Father, and Living a “Religious Life”?
The time God spoke to me most clearly, he said: “Duncan, you’re called to religious life.” I was 36, single, and in the final stages of candidacy for the Episcopal priesthood. I was also studying Spanish with Catholic missionaries in Bolivia as preparation for work at a bilingual parish near my home in Vermont. . . .
The Practice of Memento Mori (Remember You Must Die)
Sometime in late summer I started waking up in the middle of the night. Beneath the swirling thoughts about all the recent changes in my life–getting married, moving, starting work as a parish priest–my belly felt like a bundle of bricks . . . .
The Devil Advises Me and Other Young White Clergy
Everything is fine. Just recruit more young families. Check in on the elderly. Post on social media. Try something new—church on the lawn, or at soccer games, or on Thursday evenings. Train lay leaders. Mix up the Sunday music with something contemporary. . .
Running the Race
In my mid-30s, a year into being ordained as an Episcopal priest, I read Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. The book’s theories about training methods and improvement made me wonder: “Could the science of expertise be applied to the spiritual disciplines?”
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
Quote Source
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
Quote Source