Fathers' Group

The Rev. Joshua Daniel, PhD

Joshua has failed at many things in life. For all but one year of his baseball career (which ended in Little League) he was an abysmal right-handed batter. In middle school he strove, but failed, to make honor-roll. He was a stalwart of the bench in junior high basketball, getting only one chance to prove his mettle: his coach subbed-him-in when the game was on the line and tied against his school’s archrival, the Elmwood Raiders; within moments he managed to make a quick steal with an open court and easy layup ahead of him, but instead he dribbled the ball off his foot and out-of-bounds. He “rode the bench” until he finally quit his sophomore year. Later in high school he reached above his station and signed up for honors English; however he was soon asked (“strongly requested”) to drop out by one of the most admired teachers in his school. In his early twenties he was fired from a part-time job at a fancy Italian restaurant in St. Louis, MO (mostly he thinks for not understanding the je ne sais quoi of French Red Wine). In college he graduated a semester late due to misunderstanding the rather complicated sequence of his college’s foreign language credit system. Soon thereafter he stumbled into graduate school, unwittingly entering a 12 year doom-loop of full-time studies, which he finally escaped at the age of 35. His first calling as a priest in Arkansas ended in total disaster. His three beautiful children do not agree on much but managed to find rare consensus on his “cringe” rating: an impressive 97%. In the late 2000s, his wife once compared him to Johnny Depp, circa Depp’s Edward Scissorhands days.

By the grace of God Joshua has come to work at St. Columba’s, a spirit-filled place that strives to honor every single person as beloved children of God, warts and all. Joshua delights in the never ending river of forgiveness and mercy he continually receives from Jesus; and he draws on a tantalizingly similar affection and courage from his family who somehow know just what to say to call him up off the ground and to get him to try again.

Joshua loves to meet new and familiar faces from around the parish and neighborhood and hear their own journeys of faith: the stories earlily shared, the stories hard to name, the stories that seem to have slipped through the cracks.

Joshua began at St. Columba’s in March 2020, arriving simultaneously with the great pandemic. He would not meet most parishioners in-person for another year and a half. You can find out more about his background and current projects here.