Look and Listen

Biography

My parents came to Florida when Orlando was a filling station, a citrus packing house, and 24 hour diner. I grew up in a Florida that no longer exists: wide open grassy fields, two-lane black-top roads, unforced civility and home-grown charm. My momma was a schoolteacher and a Lutheran, my daddy a Mason and a Marine. My undergrad degree in English is from Lenoir-Rhyne College in North Carolina, my Master of Divinity (an oxymoron if ever there was one)is from the Lutheran Seminary in Columbia, SC. I served four parishes in my career, two in Florida, two in North Carolina, but after 23 years enough was enough. So we moved to St. Thomas where we were the Godiva chocolate people for a couple of years. The Caribbean lifestyle lasted for a while, but the backbreaking poverty and the nightly gunfire chased us back to the mainland. The religious quest is my consuming passion, and that's why I'm a little bit of a heretic, and my out-on-the-edge friends say that's okay with them. In all humility, I hope you get to know me and my work. You'll be richer for it.

Inspiration

I'm in thrall to the written word. Nothing captures my attention like the unfolding beauty of a well-crafted sentence. A fully flavored paragraph caresses my brain and rolls around my tongue like a blood-red Shiraz. I respect and honor those rare impassioned writers who take the time to write as though the very angels were guiding their fingers. Sweet Heavely Daze grew out of the sad truth that not even the clergy writes very much about the Afterlife. And what they do write is either Disneyesque or plainly boring. You would think they would do a better job of writing about their passion with some...you know...passion. I was formed by rock'n'roll, skinny-dipping in the Gulf, Slim Snorch, and some patient and funny people along the way who kept telling me, "Man, you sure can write." I'm a teary-eyed romantic who is also a realist, a sympathetic cynic with a heart of gold, and a curmudgeon in training.