About

Yes, my name really is Nurya Love Parish.

The name “Nurya” means “light of God” in Aramaic. It’s easy to pronounce: noor-yah. (Although I tend to answer to anything, including confused looks from people reading it for the first time.)

“Love” is my mother’s maiden name. Once upon a time, her family owned Love’s Bakery. I acquired “Parish” in 2000 when I married my husband, David.

I was raised without religion in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was a college student when I visited the Unitarian Universalist Society of Pomona Valley, California. I went to church looking for community; I remember a cinderblock building with folding metal chairs and a linoleum floor.

I walked in curious about church; I walked out changed by God. I had been called to ordained ministry, despite the fact that it was the first time I had ever gone to church. It was absolutely not what I had expected, yet it was undeniable.

From that first encounter with God, I've spent a lifetime trying to listen, follow, and lead others to love God first and best. I was baptized while studying at Harvard Divinity School and started out ordained life as a Unitarian Universalist Christian minister in Fenton, Michigan in the late 1990's. About ten years later, I left the UUs and became an Episcopalian. The Episcopalians welcomed me, then re-ordained me. I became a priest in 2011.

As a priest, I served on the staff of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church and then was rector with Holy Spirit Episcopal Church. I started serving in elected leadership in the diocese and churchwide. But as much as I love the church, my call from God didn't entirely fit within the church's paradigm. In 2014, together with Mike and Bethany Edwardson and supported by my silent partner husband, I began to create a new ministry on property then owned by my family. I connected it to the Episcopal Church and called it Plainsong Farm.

In 2014, there weren't many other Christians starting new farm based ministries. We were figuring it out as we went. Starting something new - something that the church doesn't understand and the founders don't understand - is very hard to do, and even harder to write about as you do it, so there's very little on this blog about it. Really, God did it, and we got to help. It wouldn't have happened without the work and care of many - so many, it soon took a database to keep them all in order.

Ultimately, Plainsong became a sustainable ministry integrating Christian discipleship and environmental education. The organization bought the properties on which it operated in November of 2022. It was a great day.

After ten years of working as Plainsong's founding Executive Director, I resigned (with love) in late 2023 with a plan to leave in early 2024.

Plainsong and I were both ready for a new chapter. I always want Plainsong Farm to thrive. For an organization to thrive, staff leaders have to like their jobs. I loved the problem-solving start-up stage, which stretched me and grew me. Once Plainsong was stable and running smoothly, I slowly realized I felt that my work leading the farm was done. Instead I felt called to serve my church as locally we coped with some major challenges. Thank God, in 2024 the great humans I had worked with for years stepped up to lead Plainsong Farm as its Co-Directors in a seamless transition, and I began a new role on my church's regional staff.

This blog is part of my new chapter. This is a place to tell stories, share images, imagine possibilities. It is also a place to delve into data, conduct experiments, and make friends. I'm an old school blogger; I started publishing on the internet in 2011. Most of those archives are here on this site in case anyone wants to know how I was analyzing the Episcopal Church ten years ago or reflecting on the difference between start-up farm ministry and serving a mainline church.

Today, every day, and never perfectly, I begin again.