Dear ones,

I feel so thrilled, blessed, and grateful to be serving at Epiphany for the next four semesters of my journey toward ordination while in seminary! Everyone has been so welcoming to me and made me feel right at home. Thank you for your warm hospitality, your kindness, and your support. I feel like I won the seminarian field education lottery! God is good!

Hillary asked me to share a little bit about myself with you and why I feel called to be a priest in God’s Church. I am originally from Nashville, Tennessee where I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. I graduated from Oberlin College in northern Ohio in 1994 and earned a master’s degree in environmental management at Duke University in 1998. My first vocation was in the conservation field where I had the good fortune to work as an ecologist for The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit land and water conservation organization, for almost 20 years. I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for 17 years before moving to Alexandria last year with my spouse, Janean and our four pets (two dogs, two cats) to attend Virginia Theological Seminary. In 2007, Janean and I had a commitment ceremony followed by a legal wedding in our sending parish, St. Paul’s Memorial Church in 2015. Janean is an amazingly gifted high school Spanish teacher at North Stafford High School (go North!). Thank God for our teachers!

I first sensed my call to be a priest in the Episcopal Church when I was 22. However, at that time, openly gay and lesbian people were not approved for ordination. I did not try to discern my call because I refused to hide who I was. I now see this barrier as a gift because I was completely unprepared for the priesthood in my 20s! It was also equally true that I felt strongly called to steward God’s creation through my work in conservation (and this continues today). However, the call to the priesthood never went way.

When I was 39, I went through a major crisis in my life that triggered some intense soul searching. My call burst forth with renewed intensity. This time, given the Episcopal Church’s changing stances on ordaining LGBT people, the possibility to pursue my call was real. The Holy Spirit was getting serious! It was time to discern God’s call and how I could live into it faithfully. I was very slow and deliberate in my discernment process because I had a lot at stake with Janean, our careers, our home and our community in Charlottesville. With God’s help and through ongoing conversation with my cloud of witnesses, it became clearer over time that I was called to express my gifts of relating to and ministering to people in ways not fully accessible to me otherwise. My discernment period was six years in all-no stone left unturned! By God’s grace, I was affirmed as a postulant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Virginia by Bishop Ted Gulick in January 2015.

Why do I feel called to be a priest? I want to be more intimately involved in people’s lives, to abide with them in the thin places and spiritual borderlands of their walk with God. Mostly importantly, I feel called to empower and inspire others through teaching, preaching, and pastoral care to faithfully respond to their Baptismal covenants by using their gifts and graces to love and serve others to build up God’s kingdom here on earth. We all share in the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ through our Baptismal covenant. We are all called to live priestly lives as God’s beloved children where we care for the “other,” love both our neighbors and enemies, and strive for reconciliation and healing in a world of brokenness, suffering and strife. I want to help people realize their calling to be part of the living, dynamic Body of Christ to bring about God’s reign of love and justice for all people and creation.

I’m so very grateful and honored to have this holy opportunity to learn and grow with you at Epiphany and to be shaped and formed as a priest-in-training. Thank you for being willing to teach me and help me along this journey. Special thanks Hillary and to my awesome lay committee Dick Jackson (convener), Edie Bergay, Kathleen Bellis, and Charles Perry for supporting me and mentoring me! I’m so very excited to be with you all!

Yours in Christ,

Gwynn