Meet David Frazelle, New Associate for Parish Ministry

Patty Courtright

By now, David Frazelle is probably halfway down the Appalachian Trail. The new Associate for Parish Ministry will join the staff of the Chapel of the Cross on December 1 after spending the better part of the summer and fall hiking the 2,160-mile footpath from Maine to Georgia.

This adventure has been a dream of David's since age 14, when his counselor at a wilderness camp in western North Carolina talked about hiking the Appalachian Trail. An avid backpacker, David decided that someday he wanted to do the same.

"Last summer, I worked at a continuing care nursing community," he says. "Being with people at the end of their lives made me realize how the dying process differed among people, depending how much they were able to be in touch with their dreams."

With six months between completing his master of divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary and assuming his new position in Chapel Hill, the timing seemed perfect to fulfill this dream. David's wife, Emily, will join him for portions of the trip, and David says he looks forward to meeting people along the way. "I like solitude, but not that much solitude," he says. "Also, I understand that it's pretty easy to meet other people through a kind of trail community."

The path that led David to the Chapel of the Cross wasn't as physically demanding as a 2,000-mile hike, but it was every bit as challenging spiritually.

Growing up, David says his family was only minimally affiliated with the Methodist Church, and it wasn't until he was a student at the University of the South, popularly known as Sewanee, that he became involved in the school's vibrant Christian community. "Before then, you could probably describe me as about as un-churched as one can be growing up in the South," he says.

A member of the Sacristan's Guild at All Saints Chapel at Sewanee, David says the Church and the liturgy fascinated him, yet he wasn't ready to embrace Christianity fully. The courses he took as a French and English major raised some serious questions about his faith. "Without a sound understanding of the Christian faith, I didn't have the resources to deal with the writings of people like Nietzsche and Freud," he says, "and I became uncomfortable in my role as sacristan and its prominence in carrying and wearing the symbols of the faith."

During his senior year, David enrolled in a catechumenate course - an in-depth program designed by the chaplain to explore the essence of Christian faith and life. At the same time, he says, he was forced to think about the future. In applying for post-graduate scholarships and grants, he had to explain not only his proposed plan of study and its relevance to his vocational interests, but also his underlying passion in what he proposed to do.

"One application asked me to articulate my deepest motivation, and I found, to my great dismay, that I didn't have the answer to that question," he says. "I had a kind of quarter-life crisis in which I couldn't answer the most fundamental question: what I wanted to do and why."

That, David says, was the beginning of his conversion from skeptic to believer. "The catechumenate course answered my first line of questioning about my relationship to God and the Church, and it also began to answer my questions about who I was and how my relationship with God affected my relationships with others. At that point, I began to look at the priesthood."

After two years of study in theology and Biblical studiesin France at the Catholic Institute of Paris, David decided he wanted to attend seminary. Working with the Rev. Winston Charles, rector of Christ Church in Raleigh, and that parish's discernment committee, David gained support from the Diocese of North Carolina to pursue a master of divinity degree, which he earned this past spring. He was ordained a deacon in June and will be ordained a priest next summer.

At the Chapel of the Cross, David wants to help parishioners find various ways to satisfy their spiritual hunger. "I think that the ways the Christian tradition offers to cultivate a relationship with God are much more accessible than most Christians think," he says. "There are some simple, fruitful prayer practices that are extraordinarily transformative and sustaining, and I have a passion for sharing them."

Young people in particular are very receptive to exploring new ways to develop their spiritual lives, David says, and he hopes to portray the richness of the Christian tradition to parishioners of all ages.

David and Emily, who works as legal counsel to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., have bought a house in Durham.