Very Brief Personal and Professional Bio!

I’ve been attempting to answer this question for more than two decades now. It flows from my earliest personal questions I can recall emerging as a very young child; some changing, some becoming extinct, whilst combining to drive me on, to try and seek answers. Some of these questions have remained extremely resilient over the decades, and they include:

What is spirituality?
How do we know which Christians from within which denominations have the Holy Spirit with them?
Who’s actually doing God’s works and how can we know?
How can I live my life true to my faith and to God?
How do all the other faiths and religions fit into all of this?
How do the great people I have encountered who live lives very close to what God teaches but they are not Christian, all fit in to this?
Which one or ones of those I love and respect greatly, each from across the Christian denomination spectrum, are right?
How does spirituality fit in with health, suffering, illness, death and post-death?
How does the material world and universe relate to the spiritual, if indeed it does at all?
Are magic and mysticism real?
What is real?
How is that identified?
Who is involved?
What is power?
What, if any, is its role and function in relation to spirituality?
Do I have a vocation and if so, what is it?
How do I express through practice my vocation to care and serve, given my context at any moment in space and time?

These are massive questions to ask but I have continued to try and find ways and means to make the question manageable, meaningful, accurate and valuable. My professional career took me into the sphere of General Nursing, here in the UK, where I worked in a variety of life-stage settings in three of the four home nations that constitute the UK. Academically my field has been consistently general nursing and that has included: Cancer Care, Care of the Elderly, Families with Children under the age of Five, Community Health Development, Public Health Nursing (Registered Health Visitor) and Public Health Practitioner (Caithness & Sutherland). From a trainee Combat Medical Technician in the Territorial Army Royal Army Medical Corps (211 Field Hospital (Wessex)), an Enrolled Nurse (General), converting to a Registered General Nurse, a Registered Health Visitor, moving on to become a Public Health Practitioner.

Academically, I completed my Master of Arts Degree, before a few years later commencing an MPhil (as entry to a PhD) in Theology (Developing a Spiritual Health Technology engaging wild places).

I’ve had a host of significant life events and experiences to draw on too. Some of which include being a parent, a husband, a son, a brother, and dogs. Lots of dogs! Siberian huskies more recently and in particular! It includes personal interest in the fields of: Philosophy, Environmental/Ecological Movement, Quantum Theory, Science Fiction, Myths of Gods Deities and Creation, Research/Inquiry, Canids (domestic and wild), Walking, Hiking, Mountaineering, Remote Wild Camping, and Photography. It also includes as integral to me, Asperger Syndrome (and the related experiences that go with that for me personally).

These are merely grains of information I choose to share here, to give you the reader, some form of context of where I have come from in my approach to this overarching question; ‘What is Spiritual Health’. Here, I attempt to enable you to judge for yourselves, my credibility. I am very aware, that for some of you, you will looking for and at my own credibility as you visit my website. I sincerely hope I have the balance right here in order to support you do that.

I also wish to take this opportunity to thank my virtual peer, Nicole Holt (see link for more details), who at the time of writing has acted as the other member of our own very informal Virtual Action Learning Team / Peer Supervision superposition; undertaking virtual academic work together in the fields of spirituality & health, and spiritual health. This has been very much a symbiotic relationship I feel and together, we have both been able to make advances in our fields.