9/15/22

Ahead of the Sunday service where new members will be welcomed to Spirit of Grace and the weekly newsletter going out tomorrow, I was given a list of questions to answer for my new member profile to help introduce myself to the community. Not sure how much of this will be sent out in the newsletter, but my answers were as follows:

• Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Detroit, MI. When I was in my mid 20s, I moved out west, spending 2 years in Santa Cruz, CA before making my way to Oregon. I've lived here in the PNW for the last 15 years and it definitely feels like home now.

• What was your faith journey?

I wasn't raised in any religious tradition. Religion wasn't a big thing in my family. I became interested in paganism (nature focused) and then Buddhism (meditation focused) in my mid-to-late teens. I've been heavily involved with the Thai Theravada Forest tradition of Buddhism for 20 years. Along the way, I developed an interest in Christian monasticism and its contemplative traditions. After visiting Our Lady of Guadalupe, that interest progressed until I found myself being baptized and confirmed at St. Philip Neri, a Catholic church run by the Paulists in 2015, and have since found an appreciation of the spirituality of RIC ELCA churches. I consider myself a perennialist of sorts, finding the common thread or core of religion to be what Robin Dunbar calls the "mystical engagement with the transcendent."

• What do you do for a living?

I'm currently a medical assistant at an internal medicine clinic.

• Tell us about your family.

I have a wonderful girlfriend of 6 years, Rebecca, and 4 year old black cat, Roo. I don't have much in the way of family beyond that. I have one younger sister who lives in Michigan that I'm close to. But my mom passed away 7 years ago; I never knew my real father; and I'm estranged from my step-father and 3 step-brothers.

• What do you like to do for fun?

I generally enjoy reading, writing, hiking, and binging too many fantasy and sci-fi shows.

• What are your guilty pleasures?

My guilty pleasures including imperial stouts, reality TV shows, and Buzzfeed quizzes.

• Where would you go with $10,000 and a plane ticket?

Tough call. Either Finland, to see where my grandfather came from; India, to see where the Buddha was born and taught and go on an extended pilgrimage; or the holy land to do the same for Jesus and the great spiritual teachers of Judaism and Islam.

• What would you do for a career if money were no object?

I would study and write about comparative religion full-time, especially the contemplative traditions of various religious traditions, visiting churches, temples, monasteries, and religious communities in an effort to build more understanding of the commonalities religions share vs. the things we use to divide ourselves with.

• What energizes you?

A good homily. Also coffee.

• A book recommendation:

Without Buddha I Could not be Christian by Paul Knitter; Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg; The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley; A History of God by Karen Armstrong; Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah; The Cloud of Unknowing; The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

• What brought you to Spirit of Grace:

I've been searching for a new spiritual home closer to me since moving across the river and other changes in my life. The priests who brought me into the church left Portland, and I found a home in Central Lutheran before moving to the west side. I started going to St. Andrew here and there while occasionally making the drive to Central when able. While googling churches nearby, which I sometimes do, I came upon Spirit of Grace and was initially intrigued by the description as an intentional community of Catholics and Lutherans that worship together, which sounded right up my alley. I was also familiar with Pastor Robyn from past visits to St. Andrew Lutheran Church prior to her call to Spirit of Grace, so I made it a point to visit at some point and I'm happy that I did.

• What were your first impressions of Spirit of Grace?

As advertised. lol I would say that Spirit of Grace struck me a warm and welcoming and very much in line with the universality of Christ and the open arms of the church I find within the New Testament (e.g., Gal 3:28, Mt 22:1-10 and Luke 14:15-24, Romans 15:1-7, etc.). I also noticed that there seemed to be a balanced focus on both the active and contemplative aspects of Christian spiritual life here. And after 3 visits, I can say that all the people I've met have done their best to be welcoming and supportive, and I knew pretty much immediately that this is where I wanted to call home for the time being.

I'm really looking forward to Sunday. It feels exciting to be a part of a spiritual community once more, especially one that seems to have a perfect balance between action and contemplation and shares my appreciation of what both Catholicism and Lutheranism have to offer. I finally fit in somewhere again!