Meet the candidate
My background, and why I am running
For more than forty years I have worked as a minister, pastoral psychotherapist, educator, author, and community organizer.
My work has focused on understanding how personal experience, family relationships, community conditions, and larger cultural forces shape our emotional and social well-being. I began my career working with adolescents and families affected by substance use and later developed educational and therapeutic approaches addressing trauma, loss, addiction, and social disconnection.
From 2003 to 2016, I served as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard in Florida. I am also the co-author of the Belief Systems Therapy workbook and have developed programs that help people understand the relationship between their inner lives, their relationships, their communities, and the natural world.
Healing our world — and ourselves
Between approximately 2012 and 2015, I participated in creating and organizing a series of conferences in Florida and Vermont titled Healing Our World and Ourselves and Our Children, Climate, Faith. These gatherings brought together religious leaders, environmental advocates, community organizers, and educators, including Sister Pat Siemen, Bruce Alexander, David Cobb, Bill McKibben, Gus Speth, Starhawk, and Will Allen, as well as dozens of local organizers and educators.
The conferences explored the connections among climate change, faith, addiction, trauma, social dislocation, ecological responsibility, and our obligations to children and future generations. They expressed a principle that continues to guide my work: personal healing, healthy communities, and care for the Earth cannot be separated from one another.
Vermont public service
Since moving to Vermont, I have continued this work through local public service. I have served for four years on the Vershire Planning Commission, most of that time as chair. I helped lead a community-centered town-planning process that brought residents and subject experts together to consider agriculture, housing, local food systems, conservation, energy, climate resilience, and community wellness.
I also helped establish VerShare’s Sustainability Committee and have organized public forums, study groups, workshops, community meals, and educational gatherings. This year I participated in a new community effort: Growing Food Together.
This history has taught me to recognize both the patterns that allow communities to thrive and those that divide and weaken them. Public service begins with listening. Good government brings people together, respects their knowledge and experience, examines the systems behind our problems, and helps communities create practical solutions rooted in their relationships, responsibilities, and sense of place.
My public service is grounded in listening, careful study, democratic participation, and the belief that state government should strengthen the capacity of Vermont’s towns and residents to shape their own future.