ON the Feast of Saint Basil the Great (June 14), 2014, I was ordained to the priesthood. I served as Deacon then Priest Associate for a year, then Priest in Charge for six years, at Saint James Church Lake Delaware in the northwestern Catskill Mountains of New York State. Maureen, my wife, and I recently left Saint James and have become Orthodox Christians. We operate Cloud-Bearing Mountain Christian Retreat & Training Center (Mons Nubifer Sanctus), a Christian spiritual retreat center offering a quasi-monastic training in contemplative prayer geared towards the needs of householders living and working in the world. God willing, I will soon be ordained to the priesthood in the Orthodox Church. I blog regularly on the Cloud-Bearing Mountain website, where there is also a listing of our programs and upcoming retreats.
ON June 22, 2013, I married my beloved fiancee and friend Maureen Heffernan-Nagy. Together we make our way through this life, growing older and closer with the years. As a young man, I was once somewhat flippant about marriage, but that was my own weakness. Marriage takes incredible strength and maturity, and though the stakes are high indeed, learning to love authentically is its own reward. My gratitude for Maureen, who daily teaches me love, runs deep.
CONCERNED about the social and environmental degradation associated with contemporary American lifestyles, hearing the Gospel call to humility of life, desirous of meaningful labor with palpable rewards, and enjoying a genuine intimacy with nature, Maureen and I are establishing a small farmstead in our beloved Catskill Mountains. Located in Delaware County, New York, and backed by over 2,500 acres of public land preserve, the lovely 12.6 acres given to our care is shared with deer, turkeys, bobcat, coyotes, and bear. Over the past two years, we have planted over 60 fruit and nut trees, have built a small community house with off-the-grid guest cabins, and are revitalizing old pasture for new ruminants. Though the work has been gargantuan, our goals are relatively simple: to grow the bulk of our own food with a small surplus to share with neighbors, friends, buyers, and retreat guests.
THOUGH I am shy and have often been called a quiet mumbler, I have always loved words. The attraction was likely passed along by my parents: my father was an elementary school principal with a Master’s in English, and my mother a second grade teacher. My own school career until college was rather dismal. Despite their frustration with my role as class clown, however, my teachers early on encouraged in me a love for writing, but it would be my wife, the consummate editor, who would convince me of the merits of proper grammar and spelling. For much of my adult life my writing has been focused on poetry and song lyrics. In recent years, however, I have been moved to take up some of the pressing issues of our day in the more rational and linear form of the essay. Though poems and essays of mine have been published in various periodicals, The Disfiguration of Nature is my first full-length book to be published. It is published by Wipf and Stock in Eugene, OR. It is on my to-do list, though not very far up at this point, to follow this work up with something a little less political and more personal, theological, and nuanced.
I BEGAN writing and performing my own music at age 15, and recorded my first professional demos at 16 with The Institute of Sound (IOS), a great specimen of the high school garage band. My big brother, Tom, was the lead singer, and we (our spouses, mostly) still like to replay the old video tapes of rehearsals in the basement, mostly for the rich material it offers for a good taunt. At age 19, I moved to the big city with a new solo EP to my name and dreams of making it big. I now have six full-length albums, one of which has never been publicly released. Over the years, my aspirations have substantially changed, and some of the material on these albums is as embarrassing as those old video tapes. Nevertheless, music remains a friend of mine, and for what it’s worth you can listen to some of this material and purchase CDs on the Shop page of this site.
A Long Arrival Home 8/24/15 Every week I preach a sermon But only fifteen people come to hear; Verse after verse, line after line A thousand written pages remain Unread beneath the dust; Year after year my soul Has become Countless songs Which have......
John Murdock, writer, attorney, and globetrotting localist with roots in Texas, recently reviewed The Disfiguration of Nature on Front Porch Republic’s website. He begins, “Wendell Berry, while still writing more than most of us, is squarely in the awards and laurels stage of his......
Below is a reply written to Pastor Jeffrey A. Nelson regarding his review of The Disfiguration of Nature on his blog “Coffeehouse Contemplative.” The review can be read here. My reply was e-mailed to the reviewer with a request to post it with the review,......
There are plenty of books about the environment, and current environmental challenges are well published; why write this book, and what does it have to say that is unique? The intention behind The Disfiguration of Nature is not to run through a litany of......
The Disfiguration of Naure: Why Caring for the Environment is Inherently Conservative will be released in December of 2018. Below is a 5 minute video trailer for the book. It can be pre-ordered through this website, or at wipfandstock.com. Good stewardship of nature and......
