Fr. Garrin was born in Michigan and grew up in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia, and in rural Connecticut. That combination was confusing enough that somehow he found himself in an Army recruiter’s office, after which he served two and a half years as a tank driver, culminating in a combat tour during the first Gulf War.
Having gotten that out of his system and having done his patriotic duty, he went to the University of Pittsburgh for a B.A. in English Literature. Since his parents and siblings moved to the Pittsburgh area also, it became home. After college, Garrin did a year of training for missions work with Youth With a Mission (YWaM). That included a month in Jordan and a month leading an outreach team at the 1996 Summer Olympics. In the course of that training, it became clear that God was calling him to the priesthood, so he earned a Master of Divinity degree at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA.
Fr. Garrin was ordained a priest in 2002 for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. He spent three years as Curate at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, PA. For two of those years, while still serving in Pennsylvania, he was canonically resident in the Diocese of Mt. Kenya South. He then transferred back to the Episcopal Church and served as Rector of Holy Nativity Church in Plano, TX, for fifteen years.
Along the way, Fr. Garrin met and married the luminously beautiful Jenny Higgins, and they had three brilliant daughters: Lucy, Eleanor, and Mary. The adventure of educating these brilliant children led the Dickinsons on a quest that ended in the wholesale adoption of Classical Christian Education. Fr. Garrin has fulfilled several different roles in Christian schools, including parent, board member, board chairman, homeschool principal, teacher (both at home and school), substitute, and husband of an administrator. Having been involved in independent schools, he is now very excited to join the faculty of a parish school.
Fr. Garrin is a devotee (putting it mildly) of the writings of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He makes his own beer, wine, yogurt, sauerkraut, and soap. He keeps bees and has a farm fantasy. Most importantly, he thinks that Jesus and his Church should be at the center of everyone’s life.