Introduction: A Fried Fool?

While we're still in the early phases of planning and rolling this thing out, introductions are in order.

My name is Aric Clark. I am an ordained Presbyterian minister and pastor of a wonderful congregation in Fort Morgan, Colorado. I am married to a passionate teacher/traveler/dancer/mother named Stacia, and I have two young boys Avery (4) and Curran (18 months). My background includes a childhood in community theater, and even membership in a traveling repertory improvisational-comedy troupe. I have lived in various countries around the world so I am always homesick no matter where I am. I love movies, theater, dance, opera - all of the performing arts. I am a gamer and hopefully someday a game-designer.

The question is, am I one of the Friars? Or am I the fool? Of the three of us, I am probably the most likely to get excited about systematic theology. I think words like dogma and orthodoxy can be fun things. I am also the only one, thus far, to actually get ordained. All of this seems like strong evidence that I am probably the fool, but we'll just have to wait and find out.

Coming from me you can expect reflections on pastoral identity and ministry, pacifism, epistemology, biblical hermeneutics, ecumenism, and a lot of frothing at the mouth about the obscenities that pass for Christianity in this country. Hopefully I'll keep the frothing and obscenities to a minimum, but no promises.

My motivations for doing this are several. Primarily this is a great way to maintain close ties with my fellow friars/fools who I regard as two of the finest gentleman ever to descend from apes. But this is also a way for me to keep my mind and my passions active, and to explore the utility of this interweb of ours. I have previous experience blogging, which had its ups and downs, but which convicted me that there is something about this medium of communication, which is uniquely powerful. My aim here is to find a productive use for this bizarre electronic anonymous collective consciousness.