Karen Favreau, a Greensboro author, musician, cartoonist and candidate for the ordained diaconate, will provide the music and the spoken message at a special Thanksgiving Eucharist to be celebrated at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 18, in Holt Chapel.
Karen Favreau was born and raised in Gardner, Mass. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst and her master’s degree in library science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She works as a public library manager by day (the Hemphill Branch of the Greensboro Public Library) and a freelance writer, musician and cartoonist by night. Karen’s work has appeared in National Lampoon, the Greensboro News & Record, American Libraries, Discipleship Journal, Funny Times and The North Carolina Disciple. She hopes someday to become an Episcopal priest or the fourth member of the Dixie Chicks, whichever comes first.
Cowley Publications released her first book and spiritual memoir, “Ridiculous Packaging: Or, My Long, Strange Journey from Atheist to Episcopalian, In Two Acts” in 2005. Cowely Publications describes Favreau as “Anne Lamott meets David Sedaris … a Generation X seeker who has run the spiritual gamut. Raised Catholic, she lapsed into atheism and began a long, strange journey back to Christian faith. In Ridiculous Packaging she chronicles her trip, offering a humorous, non-preachy, and heartfelt memoir in which she attempts to decipher why a cynical, thirty-three year old atheist would open her heart and accept God’s love after having spent an entire lifetime running away from him.”
Publishers Weekly says of “Ridiculous Packaging:” “This memoir tells the story of 30-something Favreau’s journey from Catholicism to atheism to Episcopalianism. . . . The last few chapters couch theological humdingers in autobiography: hermeneutics, sin, suffering, prayer, compassion. . . . Favreau well represents Gen-X spirituality; she is frank about her doubts, and she is as interested in the journey as the destination.”
Favreau’s visit is sponsored by the Truitt Center on Religious and Spiritual Life and LEAF, a new student spiritual life organization being organized, as the acronym attests, by Lutherans, Episcopalians and Friends! LEAF is welcoming of all members of the Elon community, including faculty and staff. LEAF’s approach to worship grounded in reformed liturgical traditions, but embraces all forms of worshipful prayer as well as members of the community interested in sharing in fellowship, corporate prayer and service.
Sunday’s Eucharist will be co-celebrated by Reverend Charles Hawes, retired Episcopal campus chaplain formerly posted at St. Mary’s House in Greensboro, and Pastor John Weinbach, retired Lutheran minister and the father of Elon alum Paula Weinbach Creech ’96.
All members of the campus community and their guests are welcome to attend. A fellowship pizza meal will follow in the Holt Chapel undercroft provided by the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter, a local Burlington – Alamance parish.
For more information, contact LEAF co-leaders, Olivia Hubert-Allen (OAllen@elon.edu), or Zack George (JGeorge2@elon.edu ).