It has been such a privilege to share with you the first thirty five years of life. It helped defined my call to pastoral ministry, education, training, ordination, marriage, starting a family, and early career appointments to beloved communities of faith.

Unique to the path I’ve walked has been my training and moonlighting as a psychiatric assessment officer, providing crisis intervention, stabilization, and referral for individuals in crisis. The work was rewarding and life affirming. Also, I greatly benefited and grew professionally as a medic and firefighter in one of the many local volunteer fire departments where I was welcomed as a member. 

Decades later, I drive through the towns where I once served, looking for landmarks; places where I made pastoral calls, responded to emergency calls, or experienced life changing events. The carved stone, brick, cobblestone churches where I served bring warm memories of the wonderful souls I cared for, what seems like a lifetime ago. I don’t see ghosts, but I feel the presence of sinners and saints alike, each beloved by God and by me. 

Over the time taken to write about these God filled experiences, it became increasingly difficult to obscure identities and keep confidences. It occurred to me that this would become impossible if I wrote with the same transparency about the final twenty-five years serving in the parish. People trusted me with information which I will not betray. These confidences I’ll take to my grave. So, it’s time to bring this biography to a conclusion. 

In the years that followed I was blessed to serve eighteen years as the pastor of West Walworth: Zion United Methodist Church, in western Wayne County. We were blessed to live in our own home in the school district, giving our two sons the stability they needed to complete school; something that neither Cynthia or I (both preacher’s kids) never experienced ourselves.

After serving a short two-year appointment at the neighboring Walworth church, I was appointed to serve the local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, as an educator, curriculum developer, and speaker. What a wonderful privilege to brush elbows with leading researchers in the field, compassionate caregivers, both family and professionals, and the wonderful souls living with a devastating mortal diagnosis. In seven short years, our program expanded from serving 2,200 unduplicated students to over 6,400. We taught in English, Spanish, and Russian, both in person and online, making extra efforts to reach out to underserved populations and people of color.

It was a privilege to be asked to present across New York State and at national events. I learned so much about how not-for-profits operated, leading a staff, leadership development, the importance of culture, and how to infuse Christian values in every level of an organization. 

What a fun ride!

It was a blessing to serve for six years as the pastor of the East Rochester United Methodist Church, a congregation rocked and battered by circumstances largely out of their control. We were able to take a congregation in danger of failing, remove a toxic program, welcome a day program for individuals with developmental and physical disabilities, and welcome oodles of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. These outreach efforts swelled church attendance and warmed people’s hearts. 

In the final act, I was asked to serve as the pastor of a large suburban parish in Rush, New York. We were able to initiate and complete a lot of large capital projects, welcome a new day program for more people with disabilities, and extend our outreach into the community. Seven months after I started, the pandemic shut us down. We were blessed with technology and a resilient volunteer cohort that kept us thriving, online, and continually engaged. Our day care program never closed, a tribute to the wonderful staff and volunteers. 

It’s been a privilege to lead four groups on pilgrimages to the Holy Lands. I pray for peace every single day. Full. Stop. Making a pilgrimage is better than the best commentary on the Bible. I love Israelis and Palestinians, and deeply feel their historical and existential pain. Please find a way to live together in peace, with justice, just being kind to one another. Perhaps you could teach the rest of the world, ourselves included, how to do likewise.

The world expanded when I engaged in short term mission and outreach adventures, going with two groups to Nicaragua and three groups to Guatemala. Banyo means bathroom, but beyond that, my Spanish suffers. What does cross all cultural and language boundaries is the value of God’s love, love of neighbor, helping those in need.

We send used wheelchairs to central America for remanufacturing (in a shop staffed by people with special needs), deliver and fit them to people we visit, and make home visits to assess future recipients. We also build secure houses primarily for single mothers and children, deliver WHO nutritional packs that will feed a family of four for a month, and help people enroll their children in school and set up a business with microloans. Carpenter, therapist, teacher, social worker, pastor; we all become one. We build, support, teach, and provide spiritual guidance for the last, least, and lost.

Want to experience some eye popping, jaw dropping miracles that God is doing? Go where others ignore. Learn firsthand the ways of the world. Lead with humility. Serve with love and compassion.

These experiences have been instrumental to get over myself, placing God in the center of my obsession, and, as a result, working myself to be a channel of God’s love, peace, and grace. This approach and effort made me a better pastor, a better human being.

In 2023, I suffered a terrible automobile collision and received my second ride in Mercy Flight, this time as a patient struggling to breath, wondering all the while if “this was it.” During the recovery period my son told me, “Dad. You only get so many trips around the sun.” 

Point made. 

The Lord blessed us with conservative fiscal values, learned from our depression era parents. Our financial advisor said it was possible, so I asked my District Superintendent if we could meet for coffee. “I’m thinking about retiring,” I told her. “How wonderful!” She practically jumped with authentic excitement (and jealousy, I presume, for she would retire a year later). And that sealed the deal. 

In retirement, I’ve filled in for injured or sick colleagues, took a small part-time parish of beloved for a year, but gently handed it off to a colleague just this month who needed to serve a different appointment and would better meet the needs of the people. It is a privilege to chair and serve on two not-for-profit boards, to support our son with autism, and to volunteer in the community. We travel as a family, especially enjoying cruises in warmer climes.

It is so restorative to join my wife and son for worship each Sunday at Asbury First United Methodist Church in Rochester, NY. It is large enough they can be active in its outreach ministries and I can quietly slip in, find serenity, and just worship. The music is exceptional, often led by members of local musical institutions or universities. The preaching is first rate, exceptionally well prepared, deeply engaging, Christ centered, academic and informed, welcoming and inclusive, and speaks to my soul. After 45 years of leading worship, being the one up front in alb and stole, it is gratifying to just be one of the crowd, anonymously attending with only compliments, absent of complaints. 

Church reflects larger society, mostly good people seeking a closer walk with the God of their experience. There are also a few abrasive people, individuals who could make life miserable, yet, they are in the smallest minority. I served them, anyways, sometimes in spite of themselves. The key is to not grant them free rent in my memories, where God only intended blessings. 

The journey with the God of my experience is centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I continue to welcome others to join me on this walk. Some do. Others don’t. Some join me for a time. Others have been lifelong companions. Retirement has given me the latitude to free up the schedule such that if you ever want to meet for coffee, just reach out and ring my bell. It would be my privilege. 

—

Laps in the pool this morning were nearly effortless. Then why does my body feel worn? They cleared my mind, led me to meditate on the words to two sacred hymns “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” and “Amazing Grace.” 

Swimming laps and inviting you into my inner thoughts in the pool serve as a foil for life, giving laser focus to life lived in the Spirit’s tether. Water cleanses. Water supports and suspends gravity. Water is the means of intertwining meditation and prayer with the physical world. The pool is the same water the Lord created in the earliest days of the universe, separated from dry land, over which blew the Spirit. That water is the same water  that baptized Jesus and me. 

The river of life flows, never the same from moment to moment, always present, always pressing, never absent, even for a moment. This river has been God’s gift of grace to me, transporting me from what was to what will become. God has provided every moment of creation, why would there be a reason to change?

Water is life, ever flowing; past, present, eternal. And life is beautiful.

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What’s next? 

It is a blessing that I have forty plus years of original source material digitized. It may be frightening to those who observe artificial intelligence and machine learning as a threat. Where others fear to go, I see opportunity. 

Sermons? No. Nobody wants to read them. Countless retired ministers have their old sermons relegated to the landfill by nostalgic but reality minded adult children. 

How about Eucharistic prayers, known as “The Great Thanksgiving”? Now, there might be something with traction.

I worked diligently to create original Eucharistic prayers for use during worship throughout my pastoral ministry. Each created and anchored by the scripture passages identified in the three-year rotating Revised Common Lectionary, beating with the heartbeat of the ebbs and flows of the Christian liturgical year. If they can be organized and offered, why not? If no one advantages themselves, well, so be it. I’ll still benefit from the exercise. 

“Strong, Loving, and Wise” was a seminary text book that was used to teach young seminarians how to prepare and approach the Eucharist Table.

Strong.

Loving.

Wise.

It was on my mind every time I had the privilege to celebrate Holy Communion. It served me well for more than forty years. Perhaps this new effort with be somehow related to that influential text. 

In the end, my thoughts return to God’s river of grace and my love of fly fishing. In the beloved flyfishing tale of our era, there is a valley, and “a river runs through it.” 

God loves you. So do I.