UPDATE

In February of 2025 I retired as the Rector of Saint Benedict's Anglican Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had served that parish for sixteen years as the longest serving rector in its history. Throughout the years we had many Requiem Masses and Burials, filling the Memorial Garden from one end to the other. But we also were always welcoming new members, and for the average Sunday Masses the attendance was, over the years, about thirty-five. I say, average. I believe my successor, as a younger man with his own young children, is probably enjoying higher numbers on average, or so it appears whenever I take a peek. I certainly hope so. What was happening to me was that my arthritis and asthma kept becoming worse. I would be unrealistic about it and deny the fact that it was getting worse. The best place for me to reside, based on my experience in 2005 and 2006, is the desert, because what seems to have aggravated both conditions is a lot of humidity. 

Back we came, my wife and one grown son (who is disabled), and also our dog, to the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix Arizona. To employ a term we asthmatics are known to use, I would wake up "with an elephant on my chest" two or three times a week. The whole time I served in North Carolina, as my condition continued to decline, God spared me the agony of ever having "an elephant on my chest" on a Sunday morning. But I was beginning always to feel weak and worn out, including Sundays despite the emotional "bump." Whereas some people have special allergies to this desert here in Arizona, for me it is perfect. Here I almost never need an inhaler, and have now gone months without needing to use one (a need that was expensive when I lived with humidity. Insurance companies seem to suffer from the delusion that breathing is optional, in fact a luxury). My arthritic knees are still making me handicapped, so much so that I shop for groceries riding in one of those indoor electric "golf cart-like things," and walk with a cane. But it hurts less than when I am in a humid place. 

But the most important priority to Diane and me is that we are in God's will, which means being in the local church community where He directs us. To my mind there was no competition: There is no parish I would rather be part of than Christ Anglican Church in Carefree, Arizona, and no Rector with whom I would rather find myself than Canon Steven Dart. We go back over twenty-one years to when I lived here before in Fountain Hills, Arizona. I can fill in and serve as a priest as needed, but without the full responsibilities of being a rector and doing all the things that a rector has to do. With a lighter workload, and with lungs that practically never struggle to breathe under the weight of an "elephant on the chest," this is about as good as it gets. And, yes, it means that I am now serving as a priest in the Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK) under Bishop Peter Hansen. Archbishop Mark Haverland of the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) was completely approving and supportive of me returning to, as he put it, "A church with which we are in full communion." 

WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR ME

As a full-time priest, I was never able to set aside a large enough "nest egg" for retirement.  As many of you appear to appreciate, I am writing a lot, having time now to do so. It seems that what I can teach is edifying and helpful. I appreciate the readers I have, all of you. In addition to this blog (which was founded by Albion Land in 2005, and which quickly became seen by everybody as my blog), I have started a publication on Substack. After prayerful consideration I have chosen to name it The Beauty of Holiness, a phrase that seems to really cry out "Anglican Liturgy!" I would ask you to consider supporting this ministry of teaching, mostly of writing, by subscribing to The Beauty of Holiness for $5.10 a month (about the smallest subscription price Substack allows). I do not believe that we are supposed to "peddle the word of God," (2 Corinthians 2:17), so I put nothing behind a paywall. It is all free to read. With, however, enough subscriptions as contributions to a useful ministry of orthodox teaching, I can give my wife the life she deserves in our old age after serving alongside of me (especially in the ministry of my regularly celebrating Mass in a nursing home for eleven of those years; something I am now doing here in Phoenix also with her help). You will find a link to The Beauty of Holiness here.  If you do subscribe, thank you, and may God bless you either way.

The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore.