Mediations

I am a catholic person who happens to be a Catholic person.  I have been married for thirty years to Gretchen Hall and we have two sons, Elias and Maxwell, and Maxwell has a son, Steven W. Kerr.  I write, teach and am involved in community advocacy work in Erie, Pa.  My writing and teaching are informed by philosophers Albert Borgmann, Nelle Noddings and the prolific and wise Thomas Merton.  I also have written on Thomas Aquinas, Paul Ricoeur, Malcolm X, Eva Saulitis, Anselm, W.E.B. Dubois and the Grateful Dead, among others. I believe we are living in a time of economic transition---from a fossil fuel economy to something else. Transitions take a lot of time, especially cultural ones, but there are signs of dynamic movements afoot.  Some of those movements have begun or are propelled by the institutions that have formed me, Otterbein College (now university) Garrett-Evangelical Seminary and Duquesne University.  These religiously affiliated, innovative and creative institutions are where I continue to look for constructive alternatives to the reductive mechanisms of an instrumental economy of blind consumption. Times of transitions require deep encounters with truth and mediations of eclectic ideas. Those are the themes of my two books, and some of my other writing in the areas of spirituality and contemplative education. Now the executive director of Groundwork Erie I invite you to join me in transitioning into what I call the century of reciprocity, a century of restoring and giving back. We're trying to do that at Groundwork Erie.