Laura was born in a place of front porch conversations, fresh blackberries, and unlocked doors in the mountains of southwest Virginia. She grew up in a family that didn’t attend church but taught her the living faith of caring for others. When she went to college at the University of Virginia, she felt called to a religious community and became part of the United Methodist Church’s Wesley Foundation. On a spring break service trip with the Foundation, during a night of karaoke and poetry reading with people living on the streets, she experienced a call to work with people who were experiencing homelessness.
After graduating with a degree in English and a minor in religious studies, Laura began work at New Hope Housing. There she served as a volunteer coordinator, then case manager, then program director for individuals living on the streets with untreated mental health issues. The work was a ministry for her that showed both the divine sparks in the world and the places of breaking. She was invited to speak to a United Church of Christ congregation about her work, and going there was like finding a home that she hadn’t known existed. Laura was drawn to the UCC’s inclusion and extravagant hospitality.
She began to feel like she was having an incomplete conversation in her work. She longed to offer clients communion and to tell them that they were, as Desmond Tutu says, “created by love, for love.” Laura enrolled in Wesley Theological Seminary and began pursuing ordination. She transitioned from working with homeless singles at New Hope Housing to working with homeless families in a range of housing programs at Shelter House.
She became an intern at Rock Spring in fall 2012, and joined the staff in 2015 before being ordained as Associate Pastor in 2017.
Her ministry is steeped in a love of literature and poetry and encompasses both the real pain of Good Friday and the Resurrection-eyes through which she sees the world.
Currently, Laura serves on the steering committee of the Arlington Interfaith Network, on the Board of the Alliance for Housing Solutions, and on the steering committee of Interfaith Power and Light DMV.
Laura says, “While I have loved words all my life, I only began writing poetry seriously about eight years ago. Writing is a place for me to let the contradictions of life and love rest, and to honor the accompaniment of the Spirit in all things, even the incomprehensible. Poetry is a spiritual practice for me and a way of hearing what only can be said in silence before it becomes words.”
