About Father Dan

By DFG
Reflections of a Canadian Churchman is the official webpage of the Rev. Daniel F. Graves.  Fr. Graves is a priest, writer, and Church historian in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto in the Anglican Church of Canada.  Fr. Graves is the Associate Priest at Trinity Church in Aurora and the Interim Priest-in-Charge of St. Stephen's Church Plant in Maple. This blog is dedicated to his reflections on Holy Scripture, the faith and life of the Church, and the fictional adventures of Mr. Perkins, a simple country parson, and Archdeacon Thomas Fulman. Occasionally, he allows himself to use this page to indulge in some personal reflections as well and to give progress updates on the restoration of his 1876 Mason and Hamlin reed organ. Fr. Graves is the compiler of the  book Prayers for Healing from the Anglican Tradition (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 2010) - now in its fifth printing! His most recent book, co-edited with Scott Kindred-Barnes  is Richard Hooker: His Life, Work, and Legacy - Essays in honour of W. David Neelands (Toronto: St. Osmund Press, 2103). His is currently co-editing Richard Hooker and the Christian Virtues with Scott Kindred-Barnes (forthcoming), also writing a full-length biography of Richard Hooker. He has also published several academic articles on Richard Hooker in a variety of learned journals.

Fr.Graves is currently the co-editor (with Dr. Bill Acres) of the Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, a member of the Sixteenth Century Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and a member of the Richard Hooker Society. He currently serves on the Diocesan Response Team for the Diocese of Toronto (investigating sexual misconduct and workplace harassment). He has served on several diocesan boards, committees, and commissions, including the Diocesan Archives Committee, the Archbishop's Committee on Healing, the Hong Kong - Jamaica - Toronto Continuing Indaba Encounter, the Archbishop's Pastoral Response Advisory Commission, and the Diocesan Response Team. He is a the Anglican/Lutheran appointment to the Faith-Based Advisory Committee for the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO).

Fr. Graves lectures widely on the recovery of the healing ministry in the Anglican Church and has led workshops and retreats within the Canada and as far away as Jamaica and Florida.

A passionate bibliophile, he worked for many years as the retail sales manager of the Anglican Book Centre in Toronto, and has served as a consultant to the religious book trade. 

Fr. Graves was previously the Incumbent of St. Paul's, Newmarket (2016-2019), Priest-in-Charge and then Incumbent of Trinity Church, Bradford (2010-2016). He was Assistant Curate and later Associate Priest at Holy Trinity Church in Thornhill, ON (2007-2010). 

Fr. Graves holds a B.A. (York, 1994; hons 1999), M.Div. (Trinity College, Toronto, 2007), and Th.M. (Trinity, 2017). He is the co-editor of the Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society.

He is also an avid ballroom dancer.

Father Graves maintains two other blogs:

Sermons of a Canadian Churchman

Book Reviews by a Canadian Churchman

Popular posts from this blog

Why Was Peter Fishing Naked?

By
Image
“Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.” (John 21:4-8) When we preach on this, the last of the Resurrection appearances in St. John’s Gospel, we rarely stop to ask the question, why was Peter fishing in the nude? After all, the story from which this short excerpt is taken contains so many wonderful images on which we might otherwise preach: the multitudinou
Read more

Restoring a Reed Organ, Part 13: Recovering the Bellows and Exhausters

By DFG
Image
 After we stripped the cloth off the reservoir and exhausters, we sanded them down so that they were nice and clean with no glue or material residue remaining   The bellows had been recovered in 1905 and the restorer had left a penciled note on the inside of the reservoir.  The exhausters, however, were original. They were "harmonium style", that is, with large ribs with leather hinges and leather gussets. The conventional wisdom as that novices like us should not attempt to recreate these on the first go-around.  We decided we would just recover the exhausters using bellows cloth (more on that, below).   We cleaned off the old ribs and sanded them down so that we could use them again in the exhausters. We then set them aside while we moved to work on the main reservoir. We rehinged the bellows board to the movable reservoir board (for some reason I didn't take any photos of that) and then while waiting for the hinge to dry w
Read more

Restoring a Reed Organ: Part 3 - Resources

By
Image
Last time, I promised a post on the resources that we would be using to restore our Mason and Hamlin reed organ.   I got a little behind on that and we have now begun work on the organ, so here is a little “catch-up” post with the promised information. One of the gurus of reed organs was the late Robert Gellerman.   Gellerman has a very useful book entitled, The American Reed Organ and Harmonium , which not only gives instruction on reed organ restoration, but includes a detailed history of the American reed organ.   He also has a detailed chapter on tuning, as well as designs for organ benches, stop face fonts, and much more.   Gellerman also is the compiler of the Reed Organ Atlas , which is a directory of reed organ manufacturers, where they were located, and known serial numbers by years.   It is a very helpful resource for identifying and dating the old reed organ in the church basement or in the attic of the proverbial “Aunt Maude.” A book that seems to stir much contr
Read more