Neil Cullan McKinley was born in Ontario, Canada. He later, at the ripe age of two, sailed across the Atlantic with his two older brothers and his mother and father, to their native homeland, Scotland.
Mr. McKinley grew up in the Vale of Leven, on the southern end of Loch Lomond. He then left school at 15 to work in a Glasgow shipyard but subsequently became an apprentice plumber in his hometown of Alexandria. Neil Cullan McKinley later moved back to Ontario, to work as a journeyman plumber. It was during a trip back from Scotland that Mr. McKinley met his beloved wife, Dorothy. The two married in 1981 and have three wonderful daughters.
In 1998, Neil Cullan McKinley became ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Mr. McKinley and his wife now reside in Brisbane where he works part time as an Army Chaplain, and spends whatever time he can writing.
Readers can visit Neil Cullan McKinley's blog at Snow Off the Ben.
Please tell us a bit about your book: From Mason To Minister: Through the Lattice — characters, plot, etc.
From Mason To Minister is an autobiographical memoir in which I engage Christianity with Freemasonry. I entered the Lodge on a personal quest to find God. Subsequently the Lodge presented me with a Bible as an expression of thanks for the Masonic research papers I had been writing and presenting. These papers came as a result of my reading of dusty tomes in Masonic libraries in my search for God. I then searched the pages of Scripture by and with which God revealed Himself to me in Jesus Christ!
There is indeed an overall plot supported by various subplots in From Mason To Minister. The book details my journey through life from Scotland to Canada then on to Australia while stopping to smell the flowers, which is to say that I was catching little glimpses of God through the lattice along the way. Therefore, not only is my journey geographical, but it is also spiritual.
One of the subplots revolves around Solomon and his Temple, two predominant themes in Masonry. I posit the idea that, in the Bible, Solomon’s Temple, the Garden of Eden, though historical and real, pose as pictures of Christ’s Kingdom which is to come. The little cameos or anecdotes (about birds, animals, trees, fish, people, and even smells, etc.) taken from my life’s journeys that are peppered throughout my book serve to illustrate what I refer to in the book as “Christ Moments” whereby Christ and His Kingdom is flashed before us in even the mundane activities of our daily lives.
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