An Introduction

TL/DR: I’m still me only more so.

I have quite a few new followers and so it’s time for an introduction. One of the strange things about social media is that we write something and then it kind of falls off the table. I wrote an introduction a year ago…? I could look it up. But it’s time for another one.

My name is Tripp Hudgins. I am a 56-year-old cis white male type person living in Richmond, Virginia. I was born here in 1970. I was raised in and around the city for the most part. My family arrived here in the city immediately following the Civil War. But the Hudgins family arrived in the 1700s to Mathews County in Virginia.

I am a descendent of colonizers and slave owners.

To spice things up I’m also the descendent of Irish immigrants and people who fought for the Union on my mother side. I tried to embrace both sides of my genealogy, but at present, sitting here on the porch of a house that was built by slaves, I am more aware of one branch of history over another.

Currently, I serve as the Pastoral Director of Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill is a monastery and we have a very large guest house with 42 beds. So we run a retreat center, too.

Let’s see… What else would be helpful to know about me? Feel free to ask me any question you like.

I went to college at the University of Richmond. I graduated with a degree in religion. I spent way too much time in the choir room and anthropology classes. I still think like an anthropologist when I think about religion. I still think like a musician when I experience religious ritual.

What might make this a little more interesting is that I wasn’t really raised in church. I was baptized as an infant in The Episcopal Church but for a variety of very understandable reasons we never did anything with it. It wasn’t until college that I started asking big questions and looking to religion for answers.

I didn’t necessarily find answers, but I found much better questions.

So, yes, I am a musician. My primary instrument is my voice. That’s where it all started for me. Singing. But eventually, I learned to play a little bit of guitar, mandolin, banjo, mountain dulcimer, and a variety of other things. As an instrumentalist, I principally play by ear. As a vocalist, I can read music. Why I cannot read music when I’m playing my mandolin, I do not know. It’s one of the strangest things about Music for me. Playing a musical instrument asks for different parts of my brain to be involved than when I sing. Weird, right?

I graduated college in 1992. The economy sucked. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I continued with school. I landed at a progressive Baptist seminary here in Richmond. This is how I ended up at Richmond Hill. You see, we needed a field education placement. I did not want to work in a church (This would be important later.). My advisor suggested Richmond Hill as a field education location.

I had heard about Richmond Hill. I had seen its founding director speak on multiple occasions Rev Ben Campbell has been a long time influence and mentor of mine.

So, that’s what happened. I ended up being the seminary intern at Richmond Hill. I moved in Advent of 1992. I ended up living here until Easter of 1996…? Something like that. I did not complete my seminary studies at the little progressive Baptist seminary in town. I dropped out. I lasted a whole nine months. That’s its own story. I’ll save it for another day. Suffice it to say I just wasn’t ready.

I ended up moving to Chicago where I did eventually finish my seminary studies at an Episcopal seminary, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. There I received my Masters of Divinity as well as a Masters of Theological Studies, focusing in liturgy and music.

I ended up living in Chicago for 15 years.

Chicago was very good to me. I was able to make a ton of music and sing with some amazing chamber ensembles. I even helped start a band of chaotic, Irish folk musicians.

I met my wife in Chicago. I was ordained in Chicago at North Shore Baptist Church. North Shore is a multi ethnic progressive Baptist Church on the north side of the city of Chicago.

During all this time, I never lost my interest in the goings on at Richmond Hill. I would visit from time to time when we came home to Virginia at the holidays.

I helped start an emergent Church in 2002. I began serving as the senior pastor at the Community Church of Wilmette in 2006. Somewhere in there I also worked as a trauma chaplain at a hospital in Chicago.

In 2011, we moved to Berkeley California so I could pursue a PhD in liturgical studies and ethnomusicology. I enrolled at the Graduate Theological Union and Cal Berkeley.

I loved the coursework. Doctoral seminars are just a dream.

My work was principally focused on Music as symbol in ritual. I studied the post evangelical supergroup The Liturgists. I was and still am very interested in how people leave a religious tradition, take their music with them, and try to reinvent what they’ve lost. How do you reinstitute a symbolic system like Music? How are relationships formed? Who decides what’s meaningful?

My son was born in 2015. I was confirmed in The Episcopal Church later that same year. No, I have not moved my ordination over. That is also a conversation for another day.

In 2017, I got sick and ended up hospitalized for bipolar type two for a month.

Covid struck in 2019.

In 2020, the week after Easter, we moved from Berkeley to Richmond. We drove across the country as the country was shutting down due to the pandemic.

We landed in a cool neighborhood in the north side of the city. I held onto a job virtually for a short while, but that dried up. I just couldn’t work remotely. I’m terrible at it. So, I started working as a middle school teacher. I did that for two years and it was a ton of fun. I recommend spending time with 13-year-olds to most people. They will humble you.

Heartbreakingly, with all the transition and my poor mental health, I timed out of my program and did not finish my PhD. I had a couple of chapters written of my dissertation, but they weren’t very good and I just wasn’t working. So we called it.

during this time, I became a third order, Franciscan. The TSSF is a lovely community. You should look into it.

Eventually, I found my way back to ministry as a hospice chaplain. This is also powerful work. Spend time with those who are dying. Loneliness is crippling stuff. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Death is not contagious, though we all get to do it someday. We may as well walk each other home.

During these first few years back in Richmond, I was reacquainting myself with Richmond Hill. I was volunteering, showing up to community meals, and eventually landed on Council.

That’s when an old friend from college who works here suggested I apply for the newly vacant Pastoral Director position. So I did, and the rest is history. I began work August 4 of 2025.

The Pastoral Director is essentially 50% abbot and 50% Executive Director. I am the head of the residential community as well as the not for profit that is doing all the social justice work.

Since I didn’t come to Christianity until college, Richmond Hill was incredibly influential upon how I understand Christianity. Living here from ages 22 to 26 ended up being an incredibly formative time for me. Praying three times a day… Or at least attempting to… Living in Community, working together with people on a vision much larger than yourself, and offering hospitality to strangers all became essential components of how I understand being Christian.

Repentance, repair, and reparation are all Christian practices. This is what we pray for. This is what we do. This is our work.

I’m still getting used to being responsible and in charge of a place that I love so deeply. It’s taking some work, but it’s coming together. I love it here. My son and my wife are doing well here. So far so good.

There are, of course, challenges. But we are rising to meet them. And I’m proud of us here at Richmond Hill for that.

OK, this is much longer than I meant it to be. If you read all of it, bless you. Get yourself a cookie. You deserve it. And again if you want to know more, please message me. Or email me here at Richmond Hill. I am more than happy to meet with you and talk about the ministry here.