I was born and raised in a diverse working-class neighborhood in Greensboro, NC, to a family with Midwestern and Northeastern roots. From a young age, I was exposed to a variety of different cultures and faith traditions - among my closest friends growing up were Irish Catholics, Black Baptists, Japanese Buddhists, and Korean Presbyterians. My parents visited a variety of mainline Protestant churches during my childhood - I was baptized in a Presbyterian church, attended preschool at an Episcopal church, and was confirmed in a Methodist church. But I was not raised with any particular theological indoctrination or enforced religious practice. Rather, I was encouraged to engage with religion broadly, thoughtfully, critically, and respectfully.

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As an adolescent, I became interested in Taoism and neopaganism, and in college I studied comparative religious anthropology alongside my degree in social psychology. I spent my teens and early twenties immersed in Greensboro's local music and arts scene, performing as a singer/songwriter and drummer in an indie-punk band for many years. Like many of my "Xennial" peers, developed an interest in Buddhism, Hinduism, and indigenous North American traditions, while maintaining a rather snarky disdain for the neoliberal-capitalist expressions of Christianity that dominated popular Christian media and life in the American South.

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In 2005, I shocked everyone I knew (including myself!) by deciding to become a follower of Jesus after a life-changing encounter with the living God on a North Carolina beach one day. That sincere commitment has guided my journey ever since, sustaining a lifelong quest to discern more fully what it means to live into my own authentic Christian witness in the context of community. 

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Since then, my travels have taken me all over the world, allowing me to learn from, and pray with, Christians of every kind: Greek, Romanian, Coptic, and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics from the U.S. to Latin America to Italy to Indonesia, Waldensians, Moravians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, Anabaptists, Quakers, Mennonites, Pentecostals, indigenous Christians, and those who consider themselves "nondenominational." Through my commitment to interfaith and cross-cultural dialogue, I have also met people who identify as Jewish Christians, Christian Muslims, Christ-following Hindus, Buddhist-Catholics, and Christian atheists. In my own life of faith and in my teaching, I seek to honor and conform to the living apostolic faith tradition as it has been received by the Episcopal Church, while appreciating and respecting the creative negotiations that many people make in their own encounters with Jesus, the Christian faith, and the church in its many forms. ​