Local Priest Serves as Kumpuris Scholar in Little Rock, AR

Canterbury Chaplain and Diocesan Communication Coordinator the Rev. Leann Wigner traveled to Little Rock, AR at the end of February as a Kumpuris Scholar at St. Mark's Episcopal Church.  The Anne McNair Kumpuris Fund invites clergy across the United States to apply for an annual intensive weekend of formation.  Less than ten clergy are chosen to attend each year.  This year, three experts at the intersection of trauma and faith were invited to be in dialogue with seven scholars who arrived in Little Rock from coast to coast.  The three experts included Dr. Christopher Kerr who wrote Death is but a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life’s End. Dr. Kerr is a hospice director who has conducted the first-ever peer-reviewed study of hospice patients who experience “visitations” by their previously-deceased loved ones. The second expert was the Rev. David Peters who is the author of Post-Traumatic Jesus: A Healing Gospel for the Wounded. Rev. Peters served as a Marine Corps Chaplain in combat in Iraq. As a teenager, he was also involved in an automobile accident in which someone was killed. The final expert was Dr. Serene Jones who is the president of Union Theological Seminary and author of Call it Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World. Dr. Jones writes about trauma and how we can discern God working through it.   To find out more about this event, click here.