I am a blogger of many notions, both foreign and domestic that hopefully will enlarge the scope of our amazement about the world in which we live. In these brief blogs I want us all to trip over the obvious in the oblivious until we stumble into wonder as big as the universe itself that’s been there all along. Novelist Marilynne Robinson captures the essence of those hidden treasures:
“I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of the creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of the miracle is here, among us.” [The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought]
A Quick Biography
Ever since June of 2005, Dudley Crawford has been pretending to be a retired minister of the Presbyterian Church, USA. Some of the people of the West End Presbyterian Church thought he had retired long before that, but he just looked dead tired because he had served that congregation for 22 years. As the little congregation grew, people from all over the map geographically, theologically, and politically created a whole new community of faith which Crawford affectionately referred to as “an uptown church with a down-home feeling.”
Born of natural causes in Canton, Mississippi over eighty years ago, he grew up a hardcore catechism kid in the reformed tradition. He has a BA degree from Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. and a degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond. After serving two churches in Mississippi from 1968 to 1975, he became Director of Admissions at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg. He moved to West End in 1983. In the late 1970’s he also served as an adjunct professor of preaching in the Doctor of Ministry program at Columbia Theological Seminary.
He and his wife, Peggy, have lived in Seven Lakes for nearly forty years. They have 4 children and 5 grandkids who affectionately refer to Dudley as “Big Daddy”, a name to which he has aspired most of his life so far.