Born in cotton country in southern Arkansas, I spent the early part of my life in one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Nestled in the foothills of the Boston Mountain chain in northwestern Arkansas, my days and nights were spent mostly outside – feeling the same wind that playfully tossed branches to and fro in the forest . . . counting a million stars in the night sky overhead . . . watching a summer storm as it slowly made its way from the mountain range on the other side of our town . . . listening to the tinkle of icicles in the frosty breeze breaking the deafening silence left in the wake of a winter storm.  In my early teens, our family relocated to the Big City – St. Louis – and although I have lived and traveled to other parts of the country (and world), this has been my home base ever since. Encouraged to appreciate beauty in nature and the arts by my mother, and by my father to develop the spiritual yearnings of my heart, I can say that those influences definitely helped to shape the life I have lived and the person I am today.

I was raised in, studied, and practiced Christianity all my life, and am fluent in Judeo-Christian religious parlance.  However, I am in total agreement with former Archbishop Tutu’s assessment that God is not a Christian.  In that vein, I eagerly open my eyes every day to a wider vision of the Divine; and, I continue to laugh in joyful amazement at what I see in every moment of every day.