About the Author

The Rev’d Blake Sawicky serves as Priest-in-Charge of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California. He came to Berkeley from St. Louis, Missouri, where he served as an assisting priest at the Church of St. Michael & St. George. He has also served as the Episcopal campus minister to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and assisting priest at St. Stephen’s in the same city, as well as the curate at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, Colorado.

Before discerning a call to the priesthood, Fr. Blake’s undergraduate and graduate training was in the archaeology of the ancient eastern Mediterranean world.  He has been involved with several field projects in this region, both on land and underwater.  As a priest, he continues to be enthralled with the richness of this subject, though now from the perspective of “another shore, [towards] a greater light.”

Fr. Blake’s ministry is driven by his desire to see people enjoy a taste of what James DeKoven famously called “The Thing Itself” — that is, the imminent mystery of the Triune God, made manifest in Jesus Christ — so that at last they might behold with joy the full splendor of God, unmediated and undiminished.  This is not primarily a mystical, supernatural ministry, but one rooted in the small things of daily life, even as it makes its final aim the “high vault of heaven.”  Fr. Blake makes occasional contributions on this theme to the blog of The Living Church.