Project Leader
Mark Clavier
Mark came to Brecon in September 2017 as the new Residentiary Canon at the Cathedral. Originally from South Carolina, Mark grew up in Florida and Virginia (and a couple of States in between). After completing his undergraduate degree in history at William & Mary and master’s degree in theology at Duke Divinity School, he served as a parish priest for 5 years in Maryland and 7 years in North Carolina before moving with his family to the UK. He completed a doctorate in theology at Durham University and afterwards briefly served in three rural parishes north of Oxford. He was then involved for 6 years in the theological formation of clergy in Wales and England. He has lectured at Cardiff and Oxford Universities and regularly conducts retreats in both the UK and the US. Mark is a life-long dual national with extended family in Wales and Yorkshire.
Mark’s role at Brecon Cathedral is to oversee the Cathedral’s engagement with the local community, provide and encourage pastoral care, and foster the spiritual life and fellowship of the Cathedral’s worshipping communities.
Convivium brings together several of Mark’s passions: enjoyment of the natural environment, a deep love of heritage, curiosity about what it means to delight, and the belief that consumer culture increasingly demands serious challenge.
He is an avid walker and trekker and has taken in the Appalachians, northern Pennines, Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons, the Sunnmore Alps in Norway, the Mont Blanc Massif, and the Laugavegur Trail in Iceland as well as tamer places in England. His doctorate explored the theology of delight or what it means to enjoy things for their own sake. His first book was a call for the Church to challenge the religion of consumerism. He has a forthcoming book published by Bloomsbury on consumerism and rhetoric (see below for his books).
Mark is also a regular contributor to The Living Church, a weekly magazine of the Episcopal Church, and their blog site, Covenant. You can read his contributions here.
Mark is very happy to discuss he development of Convivium or how you might attempt a similar initiative where you are. He can be contact via this website.
Weekly Podcast
- Episode 14 - Inhabiting Paradoxes May 8, 2020In the final episode of Paradoxes in an Ancient Landscape, Mark considers what it means to inhabit paradoxes. Introducing the Welsh ideas of hiraeth (longing) and tangnefedd (peace), he identifies living within the paradoxes of our faith with the Sabbath rest where our hearts can settle and we discover our true home. --- Send in a voice message: https://podc […]
- Episode 13 - A Nuptial Faith May 6, 2020The paradoxes encountered on Cadair Idris offer a timely lesson about a central feature of the Christian faith: that God created seemingly opposing things--heaven and earth, sun and moon, land and water, man and woman--to share in a kind of nuptial unity. Paradoxes compel us to understanding difference in terms not of opposition but of marriage joined togeth […]
- Episode 12 - The Eucharist May 1, 2020As Mark returns home from Cadair Idris, he considers how all the wonders he had seen consisted of the most commonplace materials: water, earth, air, and fire. Natural wonders always consist of ordinary things and costs the earth nothing, unlike our own attempts a creating marvels. This episode concludes with a reflection on the Eucharist in which the wonder […]
- Episode 11 - The Commonplace April 29, 2020As Mark heads down Cadair Idris and back to civilization, he reflects on the ordinary and the commonplace. Despite our thirst for wonders and extraordinary experiences, it's actually in the everyday and commonplace that we grow and flourish. Christ's own life as an ordinary craftsman teaches us to be content with our commonplace lives and to embrac […]
- Episode 10 - Wonder April 24, 2020Mark finally makes it to the summit of Cadair Idris and takes in the amazing views all around them. Reflecting on the nature of wonder, he argues that our world needs to rediscover a "sense of wonder" in order to escape loneliness and our incessant need to tinker with creation. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ma […]
- Episode 9 - Baptism April 22, 2020Mark uses the Norman font at Brecon Cathedral to discuss how the paradox of silence and words are resolved in baptism and how they have been related to the Incarnation of Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 8 - Words April 17, 2020Cadair Idris is a mountain of myths and legends: the chair of the giant Idris Gawr and the hunting grounds of Gwyn ap Nudd's hounds. Mark considers how words inscribed into landscapes become explosive, shaping us in fundamental ways. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 7 – Silence April 15, 2020What’s more silent than a mountain on a still night? Mark ponders the silence he experienced as he sat by his tent in Cwm Cau on Cadair Idris and what it tells us about our own inner silence and the silence we know as God. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 6 - The Incarnation April 10, 2020Reflecting on the juxtaposition of thick-history situated within changeless landscapes, Mark discusses what the paradox of eternity and time tell us about Jesus Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 5 - History April 8, 2020Mark recounts his walk from the Dysynni Valley where the layers of history stretching back to the Bronze Age hold important lessons about place, thick-time, and our care for the earth. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
Convivium 