The Rev. Dr. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Longview, Texas. He is a native of Southern California. He grew up in an unchurched family, though his parents are both from Kansas and grew up in different Christian churches. He was baptized as an adult in the Episcopal Church after coming to faith in Jesus through the nondenominational campus ministry at Harvard University. What drew him to the Episcopal Church was loving, faithful people; the liturgy, music, and Book of Common Prayer; and the commitmens to full inclusion and life- changing mission and outreach. After college, he went home to San Diego, where met Tracey, his wife of thirty-two years. Tracey is from New York City and came to San Diego in the United States Navy, where she served as a Hospital Corpsman. She is also a priest. They have two adult children. Rachel McLoughlin lives with her husband Alex in the Oklahoma City area. Danny has significant developmental disabilities (Down Syndrom and severe autism) and lives with them at home. Caring for his special needs has been a huge part of their spiritual journey. Fr. Bill completed his Master of Divnity and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His advisor, Bernard McGinn, is a leading scholar in the history of spirituality and mysticism in the Western Christian tradition. One of the figures he wrote his dissertation about was St. Bonaventure, a major Franciscan mystic, leading to a lifelong fascination with Sts. Francis and Clare of Assisi and the wider Franciscan tradition. Fr. Bill is an experienced spiritual director and is currently completing a certificate program at Loyola University of Chicago to refine and enhance his skills in accompanying others in their spiritual journeys. He was ordained priest in 2004, while serving on the faculty at Sewanee. It was there that he and Tracey first met Fr. Bill and Claire Danaher. He went on to serve as a rector in Southern Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas, and as Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Oklahoma. In this last role, he worked with especially sensitive pastoral care responsibilities involving conflict and crisis. Fr. Bill has always served in leadership roles in community non-profits and the wider Church. This has included work in watershed restoration and environmental justice in Appalachian Ohio, ministry with poor rural people living with HIV, and ministry with famiilies experiencing homelessness, helping them to transition back into sustainable housing of their own. He has served on two different bishops’ committees to implement same sex unions, chairing the committee in Oklahoma and performing one of the first two authorized blessings (both on the same day). He is currently a trustee of the Episcopal Health Foundation, formed by the sale of the St. Luke’s Medical System in 2013 for over $1 billion, which works to improve the health of Texans by focusing on the non-medical drivers of health. In his time off, Fr. Bill enjoys going to punk rock and standup comedy shows, as well as the occasional sporting event. He is an avid reader and loves to keep alive his interests in Christian theology and spirituality, as well as reading novels, of both genuine and questionable literary value.