Ann Larson? Hi! What have you been up to?

I think of my life as a braid that has three main strands -- ministry, music, and social justice. I seldom engage in one without at least one of the others.

I graduated from Yale ('74, psychology) with no clear idea of what to do when I grew up. So, I went to Harvard Divinity School -- a great place to explore oneself and the big questions. Refound my Lutheran roots and finished my M.Div. at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia. I was ordained 3/15/80-- and as far as I know, was the first woman ordained in a Catholic church--the Lutheran bldg was too small to accommodate the expected crowd.

My ministry has been nomadic -- campus ministry stints at MIT and Penn (while in seminary), and then Stanford, Indiana University , and Butler (which plagiarized Yale's colors, bulldog mascot and motto -- but does much better in basketball). I have an impressive beer mug collection. There were also a lot of interim positions in challenging Indiana congregations. Two of them completed major renovations started under my tenure -- after decades of starting and aborting projects. So I must have done something right--tho' I doubt they give me any credit :-)

After 9/11, I needed to come home to the east coast. I moved to Burlington Vermont area in 2002 for a parish position. (Chittenden County is practically a colony of the NYC region.) That put me close to family -- my sister and my twice-widowed mother -- for the first time in my adult life. After three years, the congregation's money and my health were depleted. So for the past five years I've pieced together p.t. and contract work and managed my mother's financial affairs. I do some fill-in preaching (I'm told I'm good -- the same congregations keep inviting me back.) I'm involved in Vermont's very active folk and classical music scenes and work on social justice issues, primarily domestic and sexual violence.

I've managed not to have any serious long-term relationships, nor children. But I'm a doting aunt, even if I don't see much of my brother's kids in California and Arizona--or even my sister's kids in Vermont (they're very busy teens). And I'm known as the pastor who likes to sing with kids. I'm a two-time cancer survivor (1990 and 2001 -- caught early, no chemo). I love living in a state where I am toward the middle of the political spectrum instead of on the far left. And I love having visitors for mini-reunions.