SPITH deacon featured

EDITOR’S NOTE: Saint Philip’s in the Hills’ Tom Lindell is featured as part of “Deacon Beacon” in the fall Arizona Episcopalian magazine. The article is reprinted here.

Deacon Tom Lindell serves at Saint Philip's in the Hills, in Tucson. Tom is a third-generation Swedish Episcopalian from Minnesota. While seriously considering the priesthood at an early age, science got in the way until much later in life. He is a graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in 1963 (chemistry and biology), University of Iowa, (PhD in biochemistry in 1969), and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Francisco (’68-70). He started his academic career at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in 1970, retiring from the department Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2006. Still interested in ordained ministry, he became a Deacon in 2000 and has since been affiliated with Saint Philip’s in the Hills. Besides being part of the regular liturgical rota on Sunday mornings, he has also shepherded an informal, non-traditional service at 4:00pm on Sundays called Come and See for the past 15 years. At the diocesan level, he has served on the Commission on Ministry for a number of years and currently serves as one of the faculty of the Deacon Formation Academy, where he reads and comments on monthly reflections from those in training to become deacons. At the local level, he has participated in the startup of Laundry Love, a ministry begun from the Come and See community which aims to offer free access to laundry services to anyone in need. This ministry has been ongoing monthly for five years although it is currently on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At Saint Philip’s, he is involved in maintaining a weekly Pastoral Care Update, which tracks parishioners and their caregivers. As a career teacher, he has continued to speak about the interface between science and theology, a subject that has never presented a conflict for him. He presented a series of talks on “Embracing Creation on Sabbath Time” at the diocesan deacons retreat in August 2019. He has also offered numerous classes at Saint Philip’s and elsewhere on the subject “Viewing Religion/Theology Through the Lens of Science.” Recently, he has presented this subject to Roman Catholic priests, nuns and professed who are on a sabbatical program at Picture Rocks Retreat house in Tucson. He is also a member of the Society of Ordained Scientists (SOSc) and was inducted as a member in the UK in 2003. He is also part of the North American Province of SOSc. Since his retirement, he has aspired to become a printmaker (creating etchings on metal plates), doing wood engravings and linocuts. He has also enjoyed the art of bookmaking, creating books from folded, sewn pages, and covers. Additionally, he is a printmaking instructor at The Drawing Studio in Tucson, a non-profit arts consortium with broad-ranging classes for the public. Retirement has been very fulfilling in many ways. He has two children from a previous marriage, Katherine (an Apple store leader in Austin, TX), and Kristina (an elementary teacher in London, ON). He has two grandchildren in Canada. He is married to Marilyn Anderson Lindell, a retired Navy Nurse (’06) and Senior Nurse Researcher in the Arizona Respiratory Center at the University of Arizona.

Tom and Marilyn Lindell distributing communion in pre-COVID times.