Br. Keith Nelson, SSJE
Keith Nelson, SSJE grew up first in New Jersey, then in Alabama. He studied at Kenyon College and Harvard Divinity School. Prior to his arrival at SSJE in 2014, he worked in secondary and adult education, as well as in church administration. He was life professed in 2019, and has served the community as Assistant Superior, Novice Guardian, and director of the Monastic Internship Program. He enjoys drawing and painting, journaling, hiking, spending time with trees, and foraging (a new hobby!).
Learn more about Br. Keith's Catch the Life journey to monastic life >
Selection of Br. Keith's teachings from "Brother, Give Us a Word"
Inequality
It is very easy to give from on top of a white horse. It is more uncomfortable to dismount, to stand in the mud at eye-level with need, with hunger, with flagrant inequality, and let it pierce our hearts in a humble conversation between two children of God: without an agenda, without a presupposition that…
Read MoreCommit
In Jesus, the God of heaven and earth chose to express a radical commitment to us in accepting the limitation of a human birth and personhood. Any commitment we make to God as Christians, therefore, is not a commitment to an idea or a principle, but a Person, who is love and relationship incarnate. -Br.…
Read MoreEcology
As agents of Christ’s regeneration, we each occupy a vital niche in this global web of greatest need. What we do matters, but what and how we love from the center of a new self matters most of all: how we love every molecule of soil, every tree, and every human life for whom Christ…
Read MoreSelection of Br. Keith's writing
“It is quite easy to heap up empty phrases. In such moments, what hope do we have? For me, it is the Lord’s Prayer.”
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“It is humbling to know and feel that we belong: that the threads of our being are woven into a fabric so much bigger than we can comprehend, and all for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.”
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“What if the awakening of our conscience to profound new layers of the world’s pain is a sign – not of God’s absence, but of the Spirit of God excavating strata of our personhood and our collective attention that we are now called to engage? And what if the path of grief thus sensed could become a sober and conscious choice – claimed and lived, come what may, as the cost of our full becoming?”
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