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Leader Bio: James 'Seamus' Dillard

My journey to ADF

Hello, my name is James Dillard; however my friends call me Seamus. Seamus is Gaelic for James, and my wife starting calling me that and it just kind of grew from there. My grandfather was half Native American. I was raised Baptist and would attend Sunday school and then go for a walk in the woods with my grandfather and he would teach me about herbs, trees and animals. He would say to me "Your grandmother goes to that little white building with a steeple to talk to God, I just step outside."

I found myself at 16 years old questioning God, religion, and most everything in life. I remember going to the library and grabbing book after book on different religions and still the questions remained. I read the bible cover to cover. I looked at the classics and somehow as we often do, I got on with life, but the questions still remained...

I continued to read and study throughout the years and I drifted toward Wicca and like many others bought the baby pagan books by Cunningham, Conway (I'm embarrassed) and others. After a few years I was introduced to Asatru' and I have been to a couple of Trothmoots and consider some of the people I met there dear friends but I wasn't quite home until I found ADF. It was in a cramped apartment in Columbus that we gathered for one of Three Cranes Grove ADF first rituals that I started to have that aha feeling.

Why ADF?

Well, like I said, it just felt right. The more I read and learned the more I liked the idea of ADF. The more people I met and got to know the more I felt at home. I liked the blending of scholarship and experiment, the balance between what we know and what we do, the idea that ADF is creating a modern religion the bridges the past with the present. I liked what Isaac, Ian and others had to say about what Ian calls ADF's big dream "of real organization, real clergy, real institutions to pass on to our descendants, real spirituality and magic."

What do you do in ADF?

Study mostly, ADF is religion with homework. So I try to learn, experience, read take it all in and allow it to help me with my personal piety. ADF has some wonderfully gifted, knowledgeable, people in it and I am just amazed to be around them and soak it all in sometimes. I have completed the ADF Dedicant's Program, the First Circle Warrior's Guild Training Program and I am currently working my way through the Clergy Training Program.

Beyond that I am a former Senior Druid of Three Cranes Grove. I am currently the guild chief of the Warriors Guild. I am the producer and host of Tribeways ADF's pod-cast. I am currently working on several print and audio projects for ADF.

My personal vision for ADF's future.

We are at a place in time in ADF where we must not only look back at our accomplishments but look ahead to our challenges and opportunities. What we did in the past may not always work in our future. If we want growth and retention then we must meet the needs of our fellowship with love and willingness to accept change for the better, patience to understand that sometimes we need to be slow and steady, and wisdom to know the difference.

ADF has been and will continue to be the organization that provides solid training, public worship and fellowship. Let us pray with a good fire.

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