Clergy ~ Monk ~ Agnostic

Charles struggled with entering the church as a member of the clergy in his teen and early adult years, and after a stint in fundraising, attended Virginia Theological Seminary and began his ecclesial career of 23 years at the Church of Our Saviour, in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he lived in the forest behind Monticello’s estate.  After his time as a curate, he entered the Society of St. John the Evangelist, an episcopal monastery on the Charles River near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  After serving as a chaplain to the morgue at the Katrina Disaster, he left the monastery and served as a Bishop’s Canon in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire as Canon for Congregational Wellness writing books to help clergy to raise money more effectively. He was also the Chaplain to the State Senate of New Hampshire and on the church’s Executive Council representing New England. In 2014 he accepted a position as Canon Steward at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, Colorado where he wrote his third book and 900 pages of his blog The Daily Sip.  After 20 years a priest, Charles felt that he had “seen the sausage being made for too long, and neither wanted to eat it, nor sell it” so he left the church and returned to secular fundraising, pottery and writing.