About Br’er Abbot
This website/blog is dedicated to Saint Melangell, a long time patron saint of mine. She’s a wonderful Celtic saint that spent her life trying to make a safe place for folks amongst the thorns, thickets, and briarpatches of society and of the world.
I hope that this will become a safe place to “let my hair down” and simply be and it’s my intent for it to be a safe place for you too so that we might simply “be” together.
The world is such a busy, busy place and the demands are often so great. I guess I don’t know how it is for you, but it’s that way for me. I have discovered that I needed a place to slow down, unwind, and express myself in words and thoughts and since I’m a social creature I thought I’d share them with you online in the form of this blog.
I guess I should explain a little about the name of the blog and who I am. My name is Brian Ernest Brown and I’m a free catholic priest and serve as the Abbot-Bishop of a very small but very sincere group of folks, well we’re a family really. We’re the Order of the Shepherd’s Heart, a Celtic catholic religious order which is part of the larger Ecumenical Free Catholic Communion.
My personal ministry is varied and vast but in short I have a deep love of hospice and am also involved in the peace movement. One of the greatest events I have been privileged to be involved with was that of Camp Casey when I celebrated Holy Mass there August 21, 2005.
Anyway, on with the story about this blog’s name… During last year’s General Chapter one of our brothers, Venerable Br. Andrew, starting calling me Br’er Abbot (Short for Brother Abbot). I don’t know if he was thinking of my love of St. Melangell and her hares or if he had in mind my propensity for thumbing my nose at the secular dictates of society and thus getting myself into trouble from time to time like our ole friend Br’er Rabbit from the Uncle Remus stories. Whatever his quirky-friendly motives the nickname stuck and here I am, Br’er Abbot and I thought calling this the Briarpatch a pretty catchy idea.
By trade I am also a glassblower and have a small glass gallery, Crystal Revelations, in Branson, MO. I’ve been making glass for over 17 years and enjoy not only lampwork glassblowing but also fusing, slumping, glass jewelry making, and stained glass. (I haven’t delved deeply into glass etching yet but it’s definately on the list of things to learn!) I have a deep love of art of all kinds and while I paint a bit (mainly oils) and can appreciate many different mediums, my real love is working with glass though. Glass is one of those mediums where you could spend a lifetime learning about it and never exhaust the medium!
I live with my wife, Christina Rose and another member of our Order, our very best friend, Virginia and her two daughters, J.J. and K.D. Oh, and let’s not forget the queen of the house, Rosemary our aged ole cat who keeps us around for entertainment purposes. We work very hard on living in community while following Our Common Rule of Life from the Order of the Shepherd’s Heart. Sometimes we are more successful than others but we intentionally keep trying, I guess that’s why they call it intentional living!
I think Rush Limbaugh described people like me as “Volvo driving, wine drinking liberals.” It’s probably the only accurate observation the man has ever made. I do consider myself a liberal and most definitely I consider myself a Christian, specifically a Catholic, but not the Roman kind! I guess you could say that I’m unapologetically Christian and unapologetically liberal. I have a bohemian spirit, a caring heart, and an open mind.
Vanity, it’s all vanity… I suppose! Well, perhaps anyway!
Be that as it may, I hope you enjoy your time here and please, feel free to comment or connect whichever you feel like. My posts will probably be erratic and even perhaps often without substance or much thought but they’ll be from my heart or maybe even from my gut.
May God and Saint Melangell save thee!
+Brian Ernest Brown, OSH
“Br’er Abbot”
