My life mission is spiritual nurture for public capacity. I want us to be strong enough to care, to know the great lightness of being. This mission grounds me in my first love, which is parish ministry.  My love of teaching is directly related to this first love: I find it thrilling to be able to reflect on 5 decades of action in the parish with others who are there. Sometimes people call me a Dolly Mama, because I enjoy a wide range of spiritual methods.  Other times people say I am a parish pastor plus.  Too many P's.

I also love teaching people in leadership situations beyond the parish, like community organizations, chaplaincies and non-profits. Action- reflection is a method I learned at the University of Chicago divinity school, and I have treasured it ever since.

Preaching, pastoring and building community (or rebuilding community) are my strengths and graces.  I build good teams with deep benches.  I like to share power and to increase power.  I am best in situations that matter enough to have conflict about who they are and where they want to go.  I am glad at the arrival of conflict because it means something new is emerging.  I genuinely believe and almost understand the death/resurrection cycle of clearing the way for what’s next.  I compost food scraps and not just them. I tend what others throw away.
I write books and articles as a way to clear my own mind and to know what I think.  My 40 books are mostly about time, Keeping Sabbath or From Time famine to Time feast.  Most recently, Marrying Outside your Tribe: A Practical and Spiritual Guide and before that, REMOVETHEPEWS.com.   Both talk about having and getting power to love and open and experience life at its best.

As an elder now, I really care about equipping the next generations for all they have to face. On my Brooklyn Rail Show, I just hosted Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua. I agree with them: NOT TOO LATE!

I am intentionally inefficient.  Therefore I get a lot done.

I teach at several seminaries and enjoy preparing people for what they can’t possibly expect, in life, church, politics and culture making.  My most popular course is the Nitty Gritty of Parish Ministry and second most popular is working with congregations and not for profits about their real estate and its problems and opportunities. I am often introduced as a combination of Henry Ford and Martha Stewart.  I grow a good tomato and write a column that showcases my personal tension: it is titled, “City Mouse, Country Mouse,” and runs Upstate near where I was born in Kingston, New York, where the Ashokan Reservoir sends great water to New York City.  I live in circles around the Long Island Sound, New York City and West Haven, Connecticut.

My partner of 42 years is a public intellectual, writer, professor and wild mushroom hunter.

I have three grown children, all in their thirties.   All three of the children identify with their father’s Judaism. One of my daughter-in-laws is a rabbi.  My son wears a sign around Brooklyn, “My mom is a minister; my wife is a rabbi.  Get over it.”  All three of my offspring have health insurance and do not live at home.  I have six grandchildren.  Don’t get me started.

Sybil, our border collie, herds people, like I do.

I was Senior Pastor at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, on the south end of Washington Square Park.   I have been with this marvelous congregation for fifteen years.  I follow their energy, which is enormous.

Now I work as a bridge pastor on weekends and during the week take assignments as a conflict consultant, a writer, a builder and a chaplain.