I am a pilgrim and a stranger, travelling through...

I was born in a doctor's office upstairs from a hardware store in Sandusky Michigan and I've had a fondness for building
materials ever since. Soon thereafter we moved and I grew up in and
near the Appalachians, in Virginia and Maryland, gifting me with a love
of wooded mountains and mountain music. My Cherokee blood comes from a
great-great grandmother who escaped the Trail of Tears and fled to the
Appalachian woods and hid, later marrying my Irish Immigrant
great-great grandfather.

My father was an atheist and a geologist. He accidentally
grounded me in a deep spirituality based on his enormous love of
creation. I never darkened the door of a church until my mother brought
me at 8 years old to a wonderful, daring, spirit-filled little
Episcopal Church inAdelphi Maryland called St. Michael and All Angels.
She had still been rebelling against her father, a Presbyterian
preacher, so she only went back to church when she had to, just like
me. I fell in love with the Episcopal Church at that time, although
most of my friends were Jewish, and my first boy friend was Jewish as
well.

Still having that hardware store thing, I put myself
through art school doing construction and then married a Jewish
carpenter. We now have two lovely daughters not yet enlisted in the
army, (see my post "The Army called for my 13 year old daughter") and
we live with three cats in Berkeley.

I attended the Corcoran
School of Art in Washington DC, around the corner from the White house.
Our convenient location made it easy to attend the demonstrations
against the Vietnam War, (like the Levitation of the Pentagon and the candle-lit Moratorium March) and to have interesting guest teachers like Allen Ginsburg. I
was in a great art school band (Ronnie and the Doves- I sang and played fiddle) and made a lot of small, strange films and videotapes. After graduation I went to Antioch
College where I majored infilm making. I worked as a documentary filmmaker for many years also serving as president of my union, NABET Local 532, in San Francisco, producing some award winning films and a sore back. Tiring of equipment and fund-raising, I started a theater Company, San Francisco Actors Theatre, and we had a terrific run of five glorious years of theatrical art.

After I got religion in a big way, I enrolled in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific where I got my Masters of Divinity and the ability to juggle my job as Director of Religious Education, my marriage and my kids needs that would make
any Cirquedu Soleil acrobat jealous.

I now very happily work as Associate Rector at Church of Our Saviour in Mill Valley
and more, I am sure, will be revealed...