– ‘Tis a gift to be simple

Tom, ordained as a vocational deacon in 2004, serves at St. Gabriel’s
on a volunteer basis. The deacon’s role in worship is to call the
community to confession, lead prayer, proclaim the Gospel, and
dismiss the people to minister in the world.

Like Episcopal priests, vocational deacons must study and undergo
examinations before ordination, but they don’t necessarily go on to
seek priesthood. Although Tom has a full-time career as an insurance
adjustor, he believes in practicing his faith regardless of where he is.
It’s not unusual for him to spend hours listening to and comforting
clients who have suffered property losses, and then call on his
personal network of contacts to help them get back on their feet.

“I don’t see it as a dual role. When you stand with someone who just
lost their home in a fire, it’s a ministry of presence,” he says. Even with a base of over 18,000
accounts in five northwest Oregon counties, Tom considers it his duty to care for every person who
files an insurance claim with his company, particularly the old, the weak, and the solitary. “It’s my
job to protect them.”

Tom never doubted the reality of God, even though his family was not overly focused on church. He
grew up south of Washington, D.C., the son of a labor attorney father and a Roman Catholic mother
who chose to take the children to an Episcopal Church in McLain, Virginia rather than bring them up
Catholic. “I was never an altar boy, but I always loved the mystery of it all. I knew what the
Eucharist was, and that we were (sharing) it because of Jesus,” recalls Tom.

In 1987 he and Kathy welcomed their first son, Andrew, who was only the second child to be
baptized in the newly formed St. Gabriel’s parish. His brother Simon came along in 1991. All have
been active in the church – Kathy as a leader in the Altar Guild, Andrew by sharing his talent as a
trumpet player during worship services, and Simon in the youth group and, for a time, drummer in
the praise band.

When Tom went through the discernment process in response to his call to ministry, he admits that
he had no idea how to find the time to serve as a deacon in addition to family life and full-time
work. On the other hand, he didn’t worry about it much – not then, nor later when he accepted the
additional weekend task of mentoring teen-age convicts who learn to care for abandoned animals as
part of Project Pooch.

“As part of discernment, you have a psychological interview. My interviewer described me as a
simple man with a simple faith,” he says. “I just knew that everything I did, God would take care of
it.”