about jeff
captain, writer and boatyard priest
Jeffrey Lewis is a professional captain, educator, and pastor. Ordained as an Episcopal priest, he now serves as vicar of a non-denominational island parish. After starting his career as a naval officer, he lived many years in the spiritual and character education of young people, first as an Outward Bound instructor, then as chaplain, teacher and rector of schools and churches in New England and California. His warmth, his love of teaching and his passion for the spiritual lives of children and families is instantly obvious in his writing and in his speeches and sermons. A gifted teacher and story teller, he reeves nautical metaphors from his love of the sea to great effect, even for people who may have never stepped foot in a boat.
He now lives on the coast of Maine where he splices together a way of life balancing work, family, community - and worship. The strands include a boatyard, an old wooden schooner, and a small island church. He and his wife have raised three sons.
This current book tells a story of faith - and doubt - from a man who grew up hard-wired as a skeptic. After many years of full-time ministry, going to work in a boatyard in Maine while also serving as an island pastor opened what he now calls useful cracks in his soul. The book explores many false choices that are foisted upon us when we believe nothing is known or believed to be ultimately true.
how it all started
“If I could believe in a God who was all good and all powerful, then that God had a lot to answer for in abiding all the unspeakable atrocities of history.”
I first became aware of this problem when I was eleven and one of my best friends died tragically. The look of grief I saw on his mom’s face at the funeral changed me, and I realized that I had a serious problem with God.
I could not express it rationally, but I felt it in my bones that there was a real problem. I didn’t know this problem had a name until decades later and I was studying to become a priest while also working in a boatyard three days a week. Scholars of moral philosophy and religion have a name for the great problem: How can believers reconcile the idea of a good and all-powerful God with the presence of so much evil and suffering in the world. In the dictionary of theological terms it was called theodicy. In the boatyard, I silently referred to it with my secret acronym WTFG.
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PUBLISHED ARTICLES
Most of my published articles have been about the spiritual or educational aspects of being on boats and on the ocean.
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BOATYARD Priest newsletter
These weekly reflections are often the foundation of my Sunday sermons, but I tend to start them when I’m far from my desk, usually in, on or under a boat.
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SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
My talks weave real and compelling stories into the perennial human challenges that affect groups and individuals.
FUN FACTS about ME
01
My wife Susan and I have three sons, all sailors.
02
I started painting almost accidentally, when one of my sons and I were goofing around with a basket of old paints we found in the basement. Because I did not know enough to worry about being good, I just had fun making pictures with no words.
03
Surfing is a life-long passion, even when it’s cold.
UPCOMING BOOK
‘REFLECTIONS OF A BOATYARD PRIEST’
Through a series of connected essays, this book tells a story of doubt and faith from a priest who, after years of ministry, went to work in a boatyard in Maine. In some ways, it’s a lost and found story. In other ways, it’s a narrated wrestling match between skepticism and belief. Both a memoir and a logbook, the story is one of hope and good news for what many feel is the confused nihilism of our age.