What Moves You? June

The Rev. James Knutsen

James Knutsen is a Priest Associate at Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa. He grew up in the town of Sonoma, and graduated from Stanford University (1983) and from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1985, 1990). In 1987, he had the opportunity to live, work and study at New Valamo Orthodox monastery in Finland, and that nine months of exposure to Eastern Christian liturgy, theology, and spirituality was profoundly formative for him. From 2004 to 2006 he explored a call to monastic life with the Society of St John the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA, another profoundly formative experience, during which he began to explore the ministry of spiritual direction. After leaving the SSJE, he completed a three-year formation program at Mercy Center, Burlingame, and later studied the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola at the Jesuit Retreat Center, Los Altos, where he also made many retreats. From 2006 until recently, Jamie served as a spiritual director at Church of the Incarnation. Locally, Jamie has served Episcopal congregations in Calistoga, Santa Rosa, Fort Bragg, and Gualala, and has filled in on occasional Sundays at many more throughout the Diocese of Northern California. Jamie visits regularly with his sister Mary, who is intellectually disabled, and looks after her care at her group home and day program. He is an avid music fan, frequently attending concerts at San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Jazz, the Green Music Center, and other venues. He now resides at Yulupa Cohousing, an intentional community in Santa Rosa.

Programmed by Rev. Sally Hubbell