MySpace a place for friends

I was born at Ft. Lewis, Washington, to an Army infantry officer and his wife of eleven years in the summer of 1955. I was reared in Washington, California, West Germany, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

In 1973, immediately following high-school graduation, I followed my father's footsteps and entered active duty with the U.S. Army and served for three years as a "public-affairs specialist, broadcaster". Think "Good Morning, Vietnam!" without a war, and you know the nature of my duty. I served in Thailand, where, during a period of acute depression, I made a crisis conversion to Christianity and embarked upon a 25-year sojourn in conservative evangelicalism.

At Auburn, I enrolled in Air Force ROTC, and upon graduation with a bachelor of arts with honor in journalism and history in the spring of 1980, I immediately entered upon active duty with the rank of second lieutenant in the Strategic Air Command of the U.S. Air Force, where I served at Castle AFB in Merced, California, for four years. Our first two children were born three years apart but in the same room of the Castle AFB hospital.

Following honorable discharge from active duty in the spring of 1984, I eventually joined the claims department of a well-known insurance firm, where I worked in various capacities for 19 years in Modesto,California, and Bakersfield, California. In Bakersfield, we adopted our two younger children, (one named "Jack" after C.S. "Jack" Lewis, the great Anglican apologist). In 1998, my father passed away from diabetes complications following estrangement from our family and separation from my mother.

In 1999, following years of increasing disenchantment with American evangelical Christianity, as an attempt to stay in the church I converted to the Episcopal tradition and was confirmed that year by then-Bishop Jon-David Mercer Schofield at what was then All Saints Episcopal Church in Bakersfield. However, my disenchantment continued and I turned my back on God and the church in the spring of 2000 and immediately fell into the trap of alcoholism. Alcohol kept a tight grip on me until, with the encouragement of my wife and by the grace of the God whom I still scorned, one morning in the summer of 2006, I poured my last bottle of vodka down the drain and never looked back.

During these years, my wife's career as team member and then manager for a well-known industrial-supply firm flourished, and we followed her career to Ventura County, California and then to San Joaquin County, California.. My own career came to an end as I left my insurance position in the autumn of 2004 and soon thereafter became disabled following a lifelong running battle with severe depression with bipolar features. I am the grateful recipient of a Social-Security disability pension.

As I became established in sobriety, I reconciled with my mother, from whom I had become estranged during my years in the bottle, and consequently found great peace of mind. In the autumn of 2007, I felt the pull of the Eucharist and realized my peace of mind would be multiplied if I likewise reconciled with God and returned to the church. I attended briefly at what was then the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Manteca, California. I did not feel at home, there, however, and left after only a few weeks.

In the late winter of 2007/2008, feeling the continued pull of the Eucharist and its promise of increased peace of mind, I decided to again try to return to the church. However,in the meantime, Bishop Schofield and most of the parishes in the diocese had split away from the Episcopal church. However, my conscience compelled me to remain Episcopal, so I made the journey to Riverbank California and Christ the King Community Episcopal Church, where I was warmly welcomed and immediately felt at home.

I am an Episcopalian because I feel at home in the Episcopal church in my belief in the combined authority and guidance of not only scripture, but also of tradition, conscience, and reason.

Also, I'm an Episcopalian because I believe passionately in a diverse, inclusive church.

Also, I am enchanted with, and find profound worship and solace in, the beauty of the Episcopal liturgy and other ritual such as rosary prayer and icon veneration. I find that physically involving the body in worship-- kneeling, bowing, fingering the beads of a rosary, meditating before an icon-- yields great spiritual benefits-- peace, hope, joy, love, discernment-- because it fully embraces our dual "amphibian" (C.S. Lewis' term) nature of flesh as well as spirit. Traditions which rule out such physical acts I find to be sterile and deracinated.

I also am a member of the Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood, the American Legion, the Defense Information School Alumni Association, and AARP. I have applied for membership in the SAC Veterans' Association, which currently is under formation.

My vocations include volunteer public-affairs coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, volunteer parish website consultant for the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, volunteer IT-support technician for the office of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin in Stockton, California, and volunteer webmaster for Christ the King Community Episcopal Church in Riverbank, California. As a volunteer, I am free to say "no" at any time, take my five medications, sleep ten to twelve hours a day, and thus safeguard my health.

I am a passionate student of all things Russian (following the inspiration of seventh-grade geography class) and also enjoy riding my bicycle, tinkering with the Linux operating system, chatting online with Russian friends, reading Russian literature, and learning the Russian language.

I am progressing through the adventure of an amicable, uncontested, mutually-agreed-upon divorce from my wife of 31 years. We look forward to continued friendship with each other. Your prayers for our family, especially our four living children and one daughter-in-law, would be very much appreciated. I optimistically anticipate what God has in store for me as I return to single life.