I was born on December 11, 1946, in Utica, New York. In the years since then I have attended school, graduated, chosen a career, married, had children, settled in several professional positions, continued my education, divorced, remarried, lost a child, enjoyed various recreations and hobbies, and learned from my many experiences.
My history contains both personal and professional elements. In this section I would like to introduce you to who I am as a person, and in the next section to who I am as a minister.
I was born the second of what would become four sons. My older brother is just 13 months older, but my younger brothers are 11 and 18 years younger.
While my mother and I awaited release from the hospital after my birth, my father purchased the first family car (a 1941 Ford sedan) so I could be brought home conveniently. I then joined my family in their rented "flat" in Utica, New York.
My father is a civil engineer who worked for the New York Central Railroad in track management for 41 years. His office was usually located in Utica. My mother is a registered nurse who worked in neo-natal education and eventually became the Acting Director of a local Planned Parenthood clinic.
My youngest years were spent enjoying life in Utica. One set of grandparents lived in Utica, and we often visited the other grandparents in Rochester (a free railroad pass was a wonderful benefit of my father's work).
 | Me as a Toddler |
My parents came from different Protestant traditions - Episcopalian and Methodist - but both were dissatisfied with the dogmatism and determinism of their traditions. Early in their marriage they began a search for a new religious home, a search that led eventually to the Universalist Unitarian church in Utica (the merger of the Universalists and the Unitarians happened in Utica decades before the continental merger!). So, I grew up in that UU setting. Many of my earliest memories focus on that congregation: the many adults who cared about and for me, the other children with whom I shared the exciting religious education explorations, the beautiful and inspirational building, the delicious family potluck dinners, the holiday pageants, and so much more.
My education through high school was in the public schools of Utica. My grandfather was the Superintendent of Schools for ten years, so I often encountered teachers he had hired and even some who had taught my mother a generation before. I loved school! My only complaint was that we didn't proceed as quickly as I would have liked.
After grade school (which in Utica was a K-8 experience) I moved on to Utica Free Academy, where I followed a college preparatory program. I was honored for work in various areas with a special emphasis on science: I won the Bausch and Lomb science award, finished first in the Mohawk Valley Science Congress, and was awarded prizes and a scholarship from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
Beyond school, church, and family, I grew in the world of nature as well. My parents owned a simple summer home in the hills outside of Utica, and I spent my summers there. The wooded hills and small lake became favorite haunts for exploration and continual sources for me of peace and understanding.
A variety of good friends and social activities filled out my childhood and adolescence. I was a Boy Scout (making rank of Life Scout). I was active in the UU high school group and spent a lot of time with my UU friends from all over upstate New York. I attended an experimental international camp, participated in a summer science program at Clarkson College, and became a certified Life Guard. I skied, hiked, swam, bicycled, and enjoyed classical music. I was the student director of the high school drama society, and an outspoken advocate for freedom in religion (or rather freedom from religion) in my school. Life was full, challenging, loving, and good.
The next decade was a period of growth and challenge. My professional life took me to three different settlements, I lived in six different houses, my family was enhanced with the birth of my children, and I enhanced my ministry with study in religious education.
Certainly one of the high points of this period was the birth of my daughter, Lee, in June, 1977. That joyous event was followed two and a half years later with the hard choices that surrounded the birth of my son, a child with multiple health and developmental problems whose interests we decided would be best served by care outside of our family. Our move to Long Island in 1980 was followed by another high point, the birth of my daughter, Suki, in July, 1981.
Beginning in the Fall of 1980, I lived on Long Island. I found Long Island to be a beautiful and exciting place to live, even if it is a bit hectic and congested at times. During those years I have maintained several of my long-standing traditions of recreation. I own a simple vacation home in upstate New York, and enjoyed periods of rest and recreation there. I also continued to enjoy my hobbies of railroading and travel.
In the fall of 1990, Gayle and I decided that, because of significant differences in our goals, personalities, and interests in life, we would separate and a "no fault" divorce was granted. While our agreement provided for shared custody of our children, Lee and Suki chose to live primarily with me.
In the time immediately after my separation and divorce, I faced a number of changes and choices. One choice was to buy a new home in the same neighborhood so my daughters could continue their existing school and friendship patterns. The obvious change was that I was single and foresaw that status continuing for an extended period. I changed back from a hyphenated marriage surname to my birth name.
Just when I thought the changes were over, I had the good fortune to be leading a workshop at the same congregation where my future wife, Elissa, was attending another workshop. She was the mother of one of my Coming-of-Age graduates and she had been housemother the year before to my daughter Suki for one session of the UU summer camp I directed. A few casual words led to a more formal connection several weeks later. In time, the friendship of two single parents that began with each other's children grew.
On June 21, 1992, Elissa Bishop and I were married. She was an active member of the UU Church in Garden City, a former chair of their RE Committee, and editor of their newsletter, and a published poet and writer. My family circle was widened further by my new step-daughter Ericka.
In 1993, Ericka graduated from high school and entered Yale University. Two years later, her step-sister Lee also graduated from high school. The two of them had become great friends, and Lee prepared to join Ericka at Yale.
In 1995, as the funding for my Long Island position ended with the implementation of District Religious Education Consultants, I entered ministerial search and was soon called by our UU congregation in Williamsburg, Virginia. We moved to Williamsburg on August 5, 1995.
Later that month, just before college was to begin again for Ericka and begin for Lee, Ericka visited our new home in Williamsburg. She had several Yale friends in the area and arranged for some social events with them. On the way home from one of those events, the car she was a passenger in was hit head-on by a drunk driver driving his truck the wrong way on I-64. Three of the four young people in the car were killed, including Ericka.
Our world stopped.
 | Our last photo together as a family |
Slowly, with the support of our Unitarian Universalist faith, a loving congregation, and accepting community, and each other, we began the process of meaning-making out of this tragedy.
The events of everyday living began their gentle call back to life. Daughter Suki had moved south with us for her high school years. A congregation still turned to me as their minister. Meals needed to be cooked, a new house to be furnished, a new community to be learned. A slow process of growth began in such simple acts.
Now, more than a decade later, I can look back and see the path life has taken. Elissa eventually turned her grief and loss into learning. She earned a Master's Degree in Community Counseling with a focus on Loss and Bereavement. She is a Nationally Certified Counselor, the founding director of The Center for Transformative Counseling, and the author of a new theory on the stages of grief that expand Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' path through acceptance into the multi-year process toward creative fulfillment that most people experience. In 2005, she was the Sophia Fahs Lecturer at General Assembly.
Daughter Lee graduated in 1999 from Yale with Honors in History; she lived for several years in San Francisco, working in market analysis. In 2005, she married James, and moved to Philadelphia to study for her MBA at Wharton. Suki graduated in 2002 (Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with majors in Political Science and Economics and is an economist with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2005, she married John, a fellow economist.
In late September, 2002, I resigned my call from the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists effective in the summer of 2003. As you will read in my Professional History section, we achieved much in Williamsburg for which I will always be proud. I chose to resign because I had found it increasingly hard to minister to a congregation that did not have a unified and unifying vision for itself.
So, Elissa and I opened ourselves to the next phase of our life.
It was with great pleasure that I accepted the call to the Ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Park Forest, Illinois. This south suburb of Chicago was a pioneer planned community in the early 1950's, and the Unitarian Universalist presence dates back almost to its founding. This is a congregation proud of its work in the integration of the community and its long-standing presence on the side of liberal social issues. Unafraid to face the future with its inevitable changes, they are an open, diverse, insightful group of people committed to making a difference in their own lives and the lives of the larger community.
For me, this has been a time of great professional development in cutting-edge issues of ministry, which you will read more about in my Professional History section. This congregation struggles with the central issues of being a progressive Unitarian universalist community with the integrity I have sought, and I feel at home in this congregation. Who knows what the future will bring, but I can only envision moving on to serve in some wider Unitarian Universalist context.
As I write this history for you, I am very mindful of the future. One constant element of my life has been my appreciation of the growth that comes through the acceptance of change. I cannot choose what will happen, but I can choose how I will respond to what happens. Over and over again, I have found that my faith has helped me learn from life and remember what I have learned to inform what may yet be ahead.
 | | Elissa and Me on the QEII
in theSummer of 2001 |
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