I grew up in a small lumber-mill town, Rainelle, located in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, where I also attended high school. Following graduation from Glenville State College, I began teaching and coaching. After working seven years in the public school system of Stafford County, Virginia, I entered Wesley Theological Seminary earning a Master of Divinity Degree; and, subsequently, beginning full-time ordained ministry. For the past 19 years I have served various parish appointments primarily in the Northern Virginia area of the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. I am currently the pastor at the Community United Methodist Church located in the Lyon Village section of Arlington.

Throughout ministry I have been interested in the impetuses of grace, faith, hope, and love, in conjunction with pastoral counseling and the psychology of religion. I am also interested in the boundaries, delineations, and relationships between various types of knowledge such as in the sciences and disciplines of theology (world religions), psychology, biology, medicine and healing, philosophy, spirituality, and mysticism. Following the completion of two spiritual direction programs including Shalem's Institute For Spiritual Formation, I completed Loyola's M.S. program in Clinical Psychology and Pastoral Counseling. During that program I was a part-time counseling intern at St. Charles Pastoral Counseling Services for two years between 1994 through 1996. While in Loyola's C.A.S. Program last year, I interned at the Springfield Outpatient Unit (with the comprehensive case management team) of Fairfax County's Mental Health Department.

In the tradition of all wounded healers, I know the religious task and the healing task as essentially the same: to help persons be free from things that inhibit growth and development in order to facilitate the spiritual journey of the soul.

I will be in the counseling office on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and evenings. I have a natural Jungian orientation toward therapy, but am not confined only to that approach. Make your appointments for individual or couples counseling, spiritual guidance/direction, or individual dreamwork/analysis.

-Carl Ripley
Pastor, Community United Methodist Church