My name is Patrick Nugent. I live in Cincinnati, OH. ​

 

I have three kids, two by the usual biological method, one because we accepted legal guardianship of a wonderful young man from our church. I am married to a brilliant, talented social worker and psychotherapist.

 

I was born in Chicago, IL, to a long line of Chicagoans. I was raised in Winston-Salem, NC and Washington, DC. I belong to West Richmond (IN) Monthly Meeting, a local congregation of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. I am a recorded minister in the New Association of Friends, a group of Quaker meetings in eastern Indiana and southwestern Ohio. I have lived and worked and shared worship among Quakers from a variety of traditions--liberal "unprogrammed," Conservative, evangelical, African. The meeting I belong to now is part of the "pastoral" tradition, which has a resident, employed pastor and a form of worship that is more structured (and more musical) than the classic form of silent worship that may be more familiar (but is practiced by only a small minority of Quakers today).

 

At present, I'm in a stretch of denominational foreign study or perhaps medium-term loan, as I serve as volunteer co-pastor of the Cincinnati Church of the Brethren. Brethren are an Anabaptist church with German roots, invited to settle in William Penn's religiously tolerant Pennsylvania colony in the early eighteenth century. Like Quakers, they are pacifist. Our little church is in a struggling inner-city neighborhood and our chief ministry is one of loving presence and engaging activities with neighborhood children. 

 

I am a proud alumnus of Xavier University in Cincinnati, where I studied Latin, Greek, and theology while working as jazz director of a public radio station. I also spent several very happy years at the University of Chicago, where I earned a master's degree in ministry and a doctorate in the history of Christianity. My specialty is the medieval period, but I was fortunate to have a broad education in scripture, theology, and church history (and Islamic studies, but that's a different story.) I taught for several years at Earlham College, where I founded the Newlin Quaker Center. My wife and I then served for five years as international field staff for Friends United Meeting, serving in Kenya as Principals for Friends Theological College. We returned to Cincinnati in 2007, where I have worked as a fundraising leader in the non-profit sector. 

 

I love Irish (and related) music, jazz, and classical music. I play classical piano and muck about on the guitar. My wife and I are deeply devoted to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a stunningly high-quality world-class symphony in a very modest city. I am a very, very bad golfer, a mediocre cyclist, and a ham radio operator (N3CLO). I cannot hit a baseball or sink a basket to save my life. I like to cook, and once in a while I am successful at it. 

 

That, F(f)riends, is way too much personal information. I hope it satisfied your curiosity, and I pray that henceforth you will have more interesting things to be curious about. Many blessings to you.

 

By the way, in case you are confused, the picture on the upper right is not me, it's Jesus, from a much-loved Quaker painting called "Presence in the Midst." I wil not post pictures of myself (family, dogs, plants, food) on this site.