I was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1978 (or, as my parents like to tell the story, that’s when the gypsies left me on their doorstep). I grew up in Edmonds, a small town on Puget Sound north of Seattle. Thanks to the financial generosity of family and the Archdiocese, I was able to attend Catholic school for 13 years (Holy Rosary in Edmonds and Holy Cross in Everett). Though I wasn’t really interested in the faith, except as a means to argue with my teachers, looking back on this I see it as a tremendous blessing—thus were the seeds planted that led eventually to my vocation.

 

After high school I wanted to get away—far away—from home, and so I got in my truck and drove 2,500 miles east to a college I had never visited and where I knew no one. At Hillsdale College in Michigan I found a traditional liberal arts & Great Books curriculum that actually appreciated rather than disparaged Western civilization; I also found fraternity life. The latter proved my undoing. But as Psalm 118 says, His mercy endures forever, and I discovered that sometimes it does so even when we neither deserve it nor cooperate with it. Thanks to a handful of devout Catholics who never gave up on me, I put my life back together and tried to salvage what could have so easily been lost to drugs, alcohol, and reckless living.

 

Not long after graduating from college I fell to me knees and realized that I could not fight life’s battles on my own, that I could not rebuild myself—only Christ could do that through His Church and the sacraments, above all the Eucharist. I came back to the Church and confessed a lifetime’s worth of iniquity to my parish priest (he had no trouble staying awake during that one). For the first time in my life I approached Holy Communion with a genuine desire to receive Jesus Christ. Little did I know that my real journey was just beginning.

 

In college, following the sage advice of professors who said that one ought to pursue one’s interests and let the economic chips fall where they may, I majored in history. Then I ended up cutting grass for a living after I graduated, and no, it wasn’t because I was interested in cutting grass. Apparently I didn’t learn my lesson the first time, because a year later I began graduate studies at Utah State University. Utahns say there really isn’t any place like Utah, and I agree, though probably not for the same reasons (anyone who’s lived there for a while knows what I’m talking about).

 

I had ordinary dreams and goals: PhD, tenure-track professorship at a quiet rural college, and a family. But at an ordinary Sunday Mass on an ordinary day in Ordinary Time, the Lord struck me with what I can only call extra-ordinary grace. As humans we hear one another with our ears, but the soul hears God in a far different way, and during the Consecration the Lord spoke not to my ears but to the innermost depths of my soul. Noticeably shaken, I walked away from Mass that day believing the Lord wanted me to become a priest.

 

Thus began a three-year journey of discernment on a winding road as I followed the Lord’s promptings. I met the Dominicans in 2004 but the Lord instead brought me into a relationship with a holy and beautiful young woman in my parish. Through this experience we learned what it means (insofar as one can outside the sacrament of marriage) for a man and woman to begin giving their lives to one another through Christ. The Lord blessed us with this experience and a wonderful friendship that thrives today, but He had other plans for us. We are both pursuing religious life now.

 

While finishing my Master’s Degree in history I accepted a research analyst position for a public policy think-tank in Seattle—a perfect job for this not-so-recovering political junkie. I did that for two years right up until entering the Dominicans in August.

 

I enjoy fly fishing, reading American history, and road trips in the most beautiful land God created—the rural American West.