My focus in this season of life:

• Founding and Growing the Elders Rites of Passage, a 9 Month intensive course with a 5 day in person ceremony, that ushers folks (deeper) into Elderhood.

• Founding and guiding Illuman of Washington, a spiritual community of men, founded out of Richard Rohr's beautiful work.

• Creating and leading retreats for churches and non-profits in North America and Europe, including weaving Richard Rohr's Men's Rites of Passage.

• Guiding men in wilderness encounters for healing, grief, meditation, vision, and spiritual connection.

• Designing and facilitating group work, both for the purposes of organizational development and personal development.

• Serving as a speaker and guide for conferences, guest lectures, field trips and retreats.

• Coaching youth sports from the high school level down

• Offering Sex Education for 8th graders, in partnership with my wife, Jamie, a Certified Sex Therapist.

• Fathering four amazing kids, and loving on my wife Jamie.

• Coaching individuals and couples on their journey deeper into life.
  

A bit of my adult story:

Soon after my own mother died from the same cancer that almost got me, I answered the call to go to seminary. Eventually I earned a Masters of Divinity from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and was ordained in 2004 by Common Ground, a non-denominational Christian community of artists, theologians, musicians, poets, storytellers and other misfits, which focused on the intersection of pop culture, art, and theology. Involved in the Emerging Church conversations, I was interested in helping form faith communities outside existing structures and without reliance on traditional funding. Thus, in order to fund my focus on ministry, I started a couple of companies (one a college planning business, the other a wealth management practice) both of which I've since sold.

In 2012, a moment came to look back on all that had transpired as a young man. I was happily married, had four kids, a remodeled house, owned a business, devoted a lot of time in service...and somehow it all didn't feel as satisfying as I thought it would. I had built an ego, my tower, my false self...and as it good as it was, it was wholly insufficient. Richard Rohr, whose work I had appreciated for some time, offered retreats down in the desert of Arizona. Knowing nothing other than it would be a lot of time in silence and solitude in a fierce landscape, I found my way to Aravaipa Canyon, for the Men's Rites of Passage, then offered through Illuman. There, I was initiated into a journey of descent. Out in the wild, I felt called to change my posture with death and life. I rarely journal, but the cryptic phrase spilled out of my pen, "Prepare to die. Live as if you have 3-5 years left."

Within a matter of months, cancer came. My diagnosis gave a 17% chance of making it 5 years, and my surgery threatened paralysis of the right side. I entered a liminal time marked by grief, radical acceptance, grace, and mystical union, which lasted several years. Death became an ever-present teacher who re-oriented me towards the rest of my life and my death. In the midst of this near-death-experience, I was blessed with many gifts, including a classic NDE, in which the words of Meister Eckhart, St. Paul, Julian of Norwich, seemed to subtitle my lived experience. The mystics, it turns out, spoke the spirit-language that made my soul sing.

Since then, however, my eyes have been cloudy more often than not. I have more questions than answers, though I feel comfortable with the uncertainties. It is hard work to stay awake! ...and it takes no work at all. I live in glorious but fleeting moments of presence to Presence. Other times I live simply from the memory of Presence from that radical day in which the veil parted long enough for everything to change. There is nothing at all that makes me special in any of this. This Loving Presence is available to everyone, and is true right now, with or without our participation. Whatever might seem special about my NDE, can be chalked up to the fact that some of us have such puny faith, we need a flashing sign...the rest of you who get it without the signs, are remarkable. I seem to take nearly as many steps backwards as I do forwards, and embarrassingly enough I'm not really sure I'm all that more loving, joyful, patient, generous, faithful, gentle, or integrated than I was 20 years ago...and I seem to know a whole lot less than I did then!

All to say if you're looking for someone who has it all figured out, you're barking up the wrong tree.

The last 10 years have witnessed a doubling down on themes that have been there all along. I've burnt my business suit and replaced them with a backpack and an old hat. I entertained going back into traditional church structrues, but under a full moon high in the mountains, my original calling to be a priest outside the institution, was confirmed. I refocused going forward on directing the Elders Rites of Passage, meeting with people as a mentor, guide, or spiritual director, and spending as much time in the wilderness myself as I possibly can. Along the way, I'm nursing passions for death work and green burials, writing here and there, and seeking shalom in my neighborhood.

Of course, all of this is happening in the context of the 6th mass extinction and ecocide. Whenever we pause to consider what is actually happening to this Earth we were called by the Beloved to love and steward, a sense of overwhelm (and grief) are not far behind. In 1000 years, if we're still around, there will likely still be racism, sexism, patriarchy, classism, and other collective evils...but the topic the descendants will discuss in looking back at us, is whether or not in our time, after we became aware of how bad things got, we rose to the challenge fast enough to make a difference. Above all our tribalist human squabbles, this is question of our time.

Such a quandry is too big to sit in, without feeling wholly inadequate. The tiny contribution I think I might be able to make, is to help folk fall in love with God's Creation, and the sacred Presence in each atom, along with falling in love with themselves and each other as members of this Earth community, in order that they might seek to save it. As it has been said many times, "You won't save, what you don't love."

However that may or may not intersect you or your community, I have no idea. But there it is, offered and released.

Bouquet

In the jug of your wound

the wine ferments.

Pay it no heed and your

vintage turns vinegary.

but!

Tend it in darkness,

steep it with kindness,

And the beautiful bouquet of

YOU

will arouse the world!

-Ned

Examples of Past Retreats

Fire on the Mountain

An encounter on the Mount of Transfiguration with Elijah, Moses, Jesus, and Peter. This weekend retreat invites men into the classic archetypal journeys these four have on mountains. Perfect for men's groups in faith communities, looking to go deeper.

Elders' Rites of Passage

A 9 month long course, situated around a 5 day ceremony. EROP has served men from 8 countries, most US states, and can be adapted to fit any context. The long term goal is that all spiritual communities will have their own Elders' Rites.

Falling Upward

A weekend retreat that draws on Richard Rohr's wonderful book. This retreat draws folks into their own and each other stories to see how all of it belongs and is used by the Weaver in creating the Great Tapestry we call life.

Wilderness Fasts and Grief Work

I've led fasts from single day events to week long excurssions, ranging in age from kids to elders, working with themes of death and grief all the way to finding ones place in the world. This experience is life-changing, and need not be a one-and-done. My favorite spiritual practice. Here is an article about a retreat I co-guided

Fathers-Sons Trips

I've led weekend encounters for 45 fathers and sons as a way to build the container for eventual initiation of boys into adolescence, and to help recover the role of the "uncle."

The Work that Reconnects

Though I'm not an official facilitator, I've used much of Joanna Macey's work sprinkled throughout many offerings, and have co-led a conference for 350 using her work alone, as well as a leadership retreat for 60. Macey's offerings are remarkable.

The King

A weekend retreat working with the archetype of the king. This retreat puts men in contact with the four developmental life stages of the king, from the unawakened prince all the way to the Elder King.

Leadership Retreats, Conferences, and Trainings

Ranging in size from a dozen up to 400, I've planned and helped lead a number retreats, conferences and trainings for leaders and for the common person as well. I'm not a formally trained leadership consultant, but I've stood in the fire myself in many leadership bodies, and my experience and approach has set a posture conducive to organizational transformation. Peter Block and Joanna Macey are two folks I've leaned on in this work.

And more...

I've also designed and put on retreats on Shadow Work, Richard Rohr's book Falling Upward, Henri Nouwen's work The Life of the Beloved, and more. I currently serve as a Weaver for Richard's Men's Rites of Passage, a 5 day instensive that Richard charged Illuman to steward, and have played many roles in the MROP over the years at numerous locations. One of my favorite offerings I've ever had the pleasure to do was speaking about Vincent van Gogh's spirituality, in a show Common Ground created call "A Stroke of Genius, a Brush with Faith."

Words on my Work