Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

(The following is from a written interview with Rev. Marshall)

What called you to One Spirit?

I found my way to One Spirit through an unlikely door. As a Reiki practitioner in North Carolina, the law required me to either hold a massage license or be an ordained minister — something about the laying on of hands. I got ordained through the Universal Life Church almost as a formality, but when that little credential arrived in the mail, something shifted. I thought: I'd like to actually learn the skills of a minister, not just hold the title.

Underneath that was deeper work already moving in me. A few years after my dad's death, I started attending Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families to address some of my core childhood wounding. My faith and spirituality grew in that program in ways I never could have anticipated — I'll hit ten years of recovery this December, and I'm still gratefully in it.

Between the two, I started sensing that my particular medicine in the world was interspiritual ministry. A friend mentioned One Spirit, and from the first time I looked at the website through the informational sessions, I felt a real pull — the kind where you can't explain it; you just know. I remember thinking, "I don't know exactly why I'm being called this direction, but I know I'm supposed to do this."

Even before I was certain of a specific path, I knew what I'd learn would shape everything — professional and personal. Now I bring my ministry everywhere: the grocery store, the ceremony, the ordinary Tuesday.

How has One Spirit shaped you and the way you show up in the world?

One Spirit shaped me through the deep work of formation. I came in already oriented toward service — I'd led a free local support group for survivors of suicide loss for several years, my Reiki practice was blossoming (especially the animal Reiki side of it), and I was doing my own healing work through ACA. But One Spirit taught me to listen more deeply to my inner voice, and to trust what I heard there.

My first year coincided with COVID, which intensified everything — my grief especially. But it also intensified our connection as a cohort. I'm still in love with my classmates, even though I haven't yet stood in a room with many of them. We grew close fast, studying wisdom traditions together and being asked to relate to a power greater than ourselves in new ways, all while the world outside was falling apart. It felt like a strange and powerful time to be doing that work.

As I learned to curate ceremony, I began to see where I might be of service in my own community in a much deeper way. Cultivating presence became invaluable — a way to bring light and hope into times of suffering. And watching my classmates do the same, I remember feeling like we might actually help change the world, one interaction at a time.

What does it mean to bring your ministry to the grocery store and not just the ceremony?

This may sound simple, but it's meaningful to me. A few weeks ago, I was in a touristy area needing a few things from a drugstore. The line was long — plenty of cashiers, but slow going. When I finally reached the counter, I read the nametag of the person ringing me up and said, "Hi, David. How's your night going?"

He lit up. All it took was a question and eye contact — an acknowledgment that he's a real person, not a machine. He told me he'd be off work in an hour, and I took a moment to celebrate that with him. It's amazing how presence can transform a mundane interaction.

What I try to bring everywhere is the sentiment of "I see you there." So many people walk around feeling misunderstood, undervalued, even invisible, and I want to add something of value to their day — even if it's just a nod or a smile. I'm aware some people genuinely want to blend in, not be perceived, so I'm sure I get it wrong sometimes. But being human is a difficult job, and life hands each of us a challenging curriculum in one way or another. We never know the impact of a simple kindness — David may have had people taking things out on him all day, for all I know. I want to be as contained and present as I can be, and treat every interaction as a chance to show up with something to offer.

How has your experience with One Spirit helped you to bridge the gaps of difference in your life, in your work, and in service in the world?

Becoming an interspiritual minister means I'm not anchored to any one tradition — I hold respect for all of them. That can get tricky, because so many people carry real wounds from the religion of their upbringing. When I tell someone I'm not going to tell them what to think, feel, or believe — that I'm there to learn from them, and to let that be the basis of our work together — it means something. It opens a door that a lot of people have had shut on them before.

I once worked with a woman through animal Reiki and animal chaplaincy — both of which I consider part of my ministry — whose views were very different from my own. In the past, I don't think I could have connected with someone like her on a meaningful level, and I don't think she would have chosen to work with me either. She reached out seeking care for her dog, and I was struck that she'd chosen Reiki at all — it wasn't what I'd have guessed was on her list. Somehow she trusted me, and I took that as a privilege. As she shared difficult experiences from her upbringing, I was able to hold compassion for her without needing her to see the world as I did. When her dog passed, she reached out to me again. A door had opened, and it's still open.

A Blessing from Rev. Marshall Hammer

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A note from One Spirit

The One Spirit Spiritual Community is the beautiful kaleidoscope of the diverse practices, passion, and service of our incredible graduate community. We believe that sharing the light of this work helps to transform the world.

If you are a graduate or student of One Spirit Seminary or ISCC whose work in the world bridges the gap of difference and you would like to share your story, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us at newsletters@1spirit.org so we can discuss featuring you in a future Sacred Refractions.

Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation. A collection of stories that show how ministry and companioning continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Jalyn’s Zoom interview.)

What first called you to One Spirit... and why then?

For years before finding One Spirit, Jalyn was on what she calls a “fruitless quest” to understand faith, culture, and belief systems beyond the boundaries of her Christian upbringing. Raised in church, she knew early on that the truths she was hearing were not exclusive to Christianity. She longed for more than conversation. What she really wanted was understanding.

That hunger showed up early. Jalyn describes herself, with a giggle, as “nosy, but studious,” someone who has always wanted to know what makes people believe what they believe, and how those beliefs shape the way they move through the world.

As a child, she was full of questions. At seven or eight years old, she was already challenging assumptions in church and wondering aloud whether the crucifixion was really the central point of Jesus’ teachings. The reactions she received were often defensive, even hostile. But instead of shutting down her curiosity, those experiences sharpened it.

She wanted to understand more deeply how other people made meaning. What shaped their beliefs. What sustained them.

She spent years following those questions on her own, reading widely, exploring different traditions, and trying to piece together a broader spiritual framework for herself. But over time she realized that curiosity alone could only take her so far. Without structure, without teachers, and without community, the search felt scattered.

Then, by chance, or maybe destiny, during a virtual networking conversation, someone mentioned One Spirit.

She applied thinking she would stay for one year, just long enough to gather the knowledge she was seeking. But instead, she found home.

While at One Spirit, “I felt like people were getting the highest version of me,” she says. “I felt free there.”

What began as curiosity became formation.

How did One Spirit shape your relationship to faith and identity?

By the time Jalyn entered seminary, she had stepped away from Christianity for a season. Some of her early experiences with faith had left her feeling constrained, and she needed distance. But her spiritual connection had never disappeared.

One Spirit gave her a way back, not by asking her to narrow her faith, but by widening it.

“For the first time in years, I called myself a Christian again,” she says.

But this return was different. It was no longer rooted in inheritance or certainty. It was rooted in choice, curiosity, and a much fuller understanding of what faith could hold.

At One Spirit, she encountered many ways of understanding God, spirit, and sacred practice. Instead of feeling pulled apart by that diversity, she felt strengthened by it. It gave her language for what she had already been sensing for years.

For Jalyn, God is simple. God is love.

In her upcoming book, she invites readers to try something radical: replace the word God with love, and the word love with God, and notice what shifts. For her, they are inseparable. God is the source of creativity, connection, emergence, and life itself.

That understanding now grounds both her ministry and her professional life. She sees her work in human resources as ministry too because, as she puts it, “your purpose is your ministry.”

Her next step is workplace chaplaincy, helping people align their careers with their deeper values, their purpose, and their sense of calling.

How did one of the hardest chapters of your life become part of what you now teach?

One of the strongest threads in Jalyn’s upcoming book is her redefinition of joy. Not as happiness, and not as ease, but as acceptance, balance, stability, and a spirit at rest even in difficult circumstances.

That understanding did not come from theory. It came through lived experience.

In her thirties, around the birth of her son, Jalyn’s life cracked open all at once. As she navigated a divorce, lost a six-figure job, and faced the uncertainty of starting over, she was also diagnosed with autism, a revelation that reframed much of what she understood about herself. For the first time, she found herself relying on government assistance.

It was a profound unraveling.

This was someone who had bought her first home at twenty-five, attended an Ivy League school, and built what looked like a successful life. She had been the person others pointed to as an example of success. And suddenly, the structure she had built her identity around was gone.

She found herself asking, Who am I now?

What followed was not immediate clarity, but a choice about how she wanted to respond.

“I had to decide how I was going to respond,” she says.

She speaks about receiving food stamps with striking honesty.

“At least I could eat,” she says. “And because I could eat, I could think.”

That time gave her something she had not had in a long while: space. Space to reflect, to regroup, and to ask what remained when so much had fallen away.

What remained was possibility.

She began writing. She entered One Spirit. She found community among other autistic professionals and became an advocate for people navigating similar challenges. She started learning new investment strategies and building a different kind of future.

What looked like collapse became a different kind of foundation.

“Now there’s meat behind the book,” she says. “It’s not just words anymore.”

The teachings she offers now are not ideas she studied from a distance. They are truths she has lived her way into.

How do you practice trust when life feels uncertain?

For Jalyn, faith is not an abstract idea. It is a practice, something lived and exercised every day. She describes it as both art and science.

At one point, wanting to understand faith more deeply, she spent weeks paying attention to all the ordinary ways she already trusted life: turning on a faucet and expecting water, going to sleep trusting the sun would rise.

These small acts became their own kind of spiritual training. She wanted to know what faith felt like in her body, so that when life got hard, her posture would already know where to go.

“My posture is faith, not fear,” she says.

But even with all that practice, the sharpest edge of trust right now is motherhood.

Her son is six. Like many parents, she carries the constant ache of wondering whether she is doing enough, giving enough, protecting enough.

“Parenthood will test every last morsel of faith you think you have,” she says, laughing.

But underneath the laughter is something tender and deeply true.

When fear rises, she reminds herself that energy is still energy. It can be poured into worry, or it can be poured into expectation. So she keeps returning it, again and again, to God. To love. To trust.

“God can do much more with it than I can.”

And maybe that is faithfulness. Not certainty, but practice. Returning. Releasing.

A Blessing from Rev. Jalyn Isley

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Whether you’re reading solo, with a book club, or as part of a group discussion, get ready to laugh, cry, question, and explore new ways to grow Good Fruit.

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A note from Rev. Ava

The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us.

If you are a graduate or student of One Spirit Seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light and you would like to share your story, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me at beautyandgraceink@gmail.com so we can discuss featuring you in a future Sacred Refractions.

Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation. A collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Kyle’s conversation.)

What first called you to One Spirit… and what was unfolding in your life at that time?

Before One Spirit, I had already been doing ministry in my own way for many years. I was leading meetings in the polyamorous community, and supporting couples through different relationship styles. I then trained as a tantric healer, which focused a lot on communication, intimacy, and connection. But I had never gone to college. And I reached a point where I wanted to step into ministry in a more professional way. I wanted the depth behind it. I didn’t want to just be someone who could marry people with a quick online certification. I felt that this work mattered too much for that.

So I applied to One Spirit, not entirely sure I would be accepted. I was entering a room where many people had advanced degrees. But what I had was life experience.

And once I got there, I realized I belonged in those conversations. That experience gave me a tremendous amount of confidence. It changed how I saw myself.

Years later, at 53, I went back and got my GED. I always say I did college first and high school second.

At the same time, I was on a deep personal healing path. I was working through past trauma, including domestic violence and assault, and exploring the connection between spirituality and sexuality. Tantra, for me, was about reclaiming power and understanding the body as sacred.

One Spirit met me right there. It gave me a place where all of that could belong.

Where does your ministry live now, and who are you most called to serve?

My ministry has always been about speaking up for people who don’t have a voice. And the truth is, my ministry doesn’t live in one place. I don’t have a single house of worship. I think of myself as a kind of street minister.

It happens everywhere, and you never know when you’re going to be called to service.

It happens when I’m sitting with couples, helping them shape their wedding ceremony or navigate their relationship. That’s where I feel most at home. I’m not a preacher. I’m a listener. I’m someone who walks alongside people.

It also happens in unexpected places. For years, I worked as a bootblack in a bar, shining shoes. People would sit in my chair for ten minutes and tell me their life stories. There’s something about being present, grounded, and open that invites people to share.

I’ve come to understand that ministry is always available. You never know when you’ll be called to serve. You could be on a train, talking to strangers, and suddenly someone asks you to pray.

So I try to stay aware. To stay open. To say yes when those moments arise.

Your life and work hold a deep connection between body, identity, and spirit. How do you understand that relationship?

As someone of trans experience, I’ve always been very aware of my body. How I move through the world, how I’m seen, how I relate to others.

For me, the body is sacred. It’s not separate from spirituality. It’s part of it.

One of the blessings of being trans is that I carry perspective from both male and female lived realities. That has made me a stronger spiritual counselor. I can sit with people in a way that holds multiple truths at once.

At One Spirit, I eventually came out to the larger community. There was naturally some degree of fear in that moment, even though I was and am comfortable with myself. But I was met with such warmth and acceptance. I felt truly seen.

That experience stayed with me.

Spiritually, I identify as Pagan, in the sense of being rooted in an earth-based understanding of life. I feel connected to the cycles of nature, the moon, the seasons. I don’t claim to know what happens after we die, but I trust that we return, in some form, to the earth that holds us.

There’s a balance I’m always seeking. Between form and freedom. Between identity and something beyond identity.

And at the end of the day, I think we forget that we are all living on the same planet, under the same sun and moon. That, to me, is sacred.

What have you learned about creating spaces where people feel seen, respected, and safe to be who they are?

It starts with being open yourself.

When you’re willing to be present, grounded, and nonjudgmental, people feel that. They respond to it. They open up.

Deep listening is one of the most important things I learned at One Spirit. Not rushing to fix. Not needing to have the answer. Just being there with someone.

I’ve also found that joy is a powerful part of this work.

Five years ago, I took another set of vows with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a worldwide order of queer nuns. My sister name is Sister Rose from the Ashes. (see Kyle dressed in his sister habit above), Through the Sisters, I’ve stepped more into street ministry and community service that is about presence, visibility, and joy. We show up in public spaces, in full nun drag, and engage people in ways that are playful, unexpected, and deeply human.

There’s something about stepping outside of ego, even temporarily, that creates space for connection. When people feel safe, when they feel a sense of lightness or acceptance, something opens.

And that opening matters.

If you could offer a blessing to those navigating identity, belonging, or spiritual home, what would it be?

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A note from Rev. Ava

The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us.

If you are a graduate or student of One Spirit Seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light and you would like to share your story, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me at beautyandgraceink@gmail.com so we can discuss featuring you in a future Sacred Refractions.

Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation. A collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Jack’s Zoom interview.)

Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

What first called you to One Spirit… and why then?

I first heard about One Spirit from Moya Keating, another One Spirit graduate. We had studied together through the Celebrant Foundation and Institute and serendipitously ran into each other in Grand Central Station. We started chatting and Moya told me about this seminary she thought I would love.

At the time, I was deeply involved in the Quaker community. I was representing my meeting in the Montclair Clergy Association and sitting at tables with rabbis, priests, ministers, and imams. I was also doing weddings and offering spiritual support to people from many different backgrounds. I realized I wanted to be of value to more than one tradition. I did not want to narrow my language or my heart to fit into a single lane.

My own journey had already moved through several traditions. I grew up in a devout but progressive Catholic family. Later, as a young parent, I became active in the Presbyterian Church and was ordained as an elder in 1995. During those years I was deeply involved in ministry with people experiencing homelessness in Newark – that work shaped me in lasting ways.

Over time, especially in the years surrounding 9/11 and the rise of militarism, I found myself wrestling with what I was not hearing from the pulpit. I was longing for a deeper embodiment of welcome, nonviolence, and spiritual integrity. The questions I was carrying did not feel fully addressed.

In 2001, I entered the Quaker community. What drew me there was the emphasis on silence, discernment, peace testimony, and compassionate listening. It was not a rejection of what had come before. My questions had simply deepened and I needed a space that could hold them differently.

Quakerism gave me tools for stillness and presence. Over time, I also realized that I missed spoken prayer, music, and liturgy. I did not want to leave silence behind. I wanted to widen the circle.

That widening eventually led me to One Spirit. One Spirit felt like a place where I did not have to choose. It was wide enough to hold all of it.

Where does your ministry live now, and what thread ties your traditions together?

My ministry lives inside the Abrahamic mystic stream, even as I remain gratefully informed by many paths. I’m centered in the teachings of Jesus, and I’m also at home in Judaism and readily connected to Islam. I’ve spent years studying sacred texts and I am particularly drawn to the inner dimensions of practice: the Zohar, Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, and Sufi prayer. A friend once joked that I am a “Jewish Franciscan Quaker,” and honestly that is not entirely inaccurate.

If I had to name the thread that runs through it all, I would name ego.

In the Christian contexts where I serve, I rarely use the word “sin.” I talk about ego. I talk about the ways we default to self-centeredness and how we can become the center of our own universe until there is no room left for anyone else. The work, as I understand it, is not to shame ourselves for being human, but to notice again and again when ego has taken the wheel, and then consciously set it aside so we can be present for others.

This is my micro-theology. All the wisdom traditions are teaching us, in their own languages, to step out of the tight grip of self and return to love. And when we show up for one another, when we make the casserole, when we sit at the bedside, when we choose kindness, I sometimes call that “goding.” Not because God magically does the thing, but because that is how the Holy becomes visible through us.

How has One Spirit shaped you professionally, in how you lead, preach, and accompany others?

One Spirit showed me that integration is not only possible, it is viable. It gave me a lived experience of respectful, collaborative interfaith community. I remember how our small study group of people from very different backgrounds created worship together without conflict and without needing to erase anyone’s truth. There was a kind of reverence in the air toward visiting teachers from different traditions, toward one another, and toward the possibility that Spirit is bigger than any single container.

It also matched my learning style. I have never been especially academic in the traditional sense. I learned how to study later in life, almost by necessity, as a young parent learning scripture. One Spirit helped me grow into my own way of doing theology: curious, textured, embodied, alive.

Over time that formation became deeply practical. I began preaching more, teaching adult Bible study for years, temporarily filling in for a pastor to lead worship and preach, often due to vacation, illness, or transition, and eventually stepping into congregational leadership. My denominational home, the United Church of Christ, offered a kind of spaciousness that fit the interspiritual lens. There is no rigid creed, there is a deep commitment to inclusion and justice, and there is freedom to draw wisdom from wherever it speaks truth. One Spirit helped me trust that I did not have to choose between tradition and wide open Spirit. I could honor both.

In spiritual direction I carry specific Quaker tools that One Spirit resonated with and reinforced: queries. These are questions you do not rush to answer but live with. You pray them, journal them, and allow them to open you over time. I also rely on micro-practices, small acts that return me to connection in the middle of a day. Practices such as, offering a silent prayer of gratitude when I see someone devoted to their path; greeting trees and squirrels like family; and letting the ordinary world remind me that I belong to something larger.

What is the edge of your own practice right now, and what does it require of you?

Trusting Hashem, trusting the Divine Presence, not in a naïve way and not as a guarantee that everything will turn out fine, but as a commitment to sense and remember the Holy in every situation. I am seventy now. I have survived cancer. I do not assume anything. I can be a worrier by nature, and that worry has roots in family history, inherited fear, and the ways our nervous systems are shaped across generations.

So the work is constant: staying awake, staying present, returning again and again.

If I can find the courage to step out of fear, I can trust that I will find enough faith to have hope. And if I believe what I say I believe, that I am part of something infinite and eternal, then my task becomes simpler, though never easy. I take care of this body as best I can. I Do the work I have been given to do. I Help others where I can.

In every moment we do the best we can in the moment. We begin again. Not just every day. Every breath.

This is also why I remain committed to transformation as the heart of spiritual life. We do not engage the Divine simply to feel better, though comfort may come. We engage the Divine so we can become whole, so we can live less like ego barkers and more like people who remember who/what we are.

If you could offer a blessing to One Spirit alumni and those who may find their way here, what would it be?

My dear fellow travelers,

How wonderful it is that we have answered the call to become whole.

That we have stepped away from the rat race and the busyness of the world in order to engage and study work that is holy, work that fosters tolerance, respect, and compassion.

Give yourself credit for the spiritual practice of doing this work.

Trust in the process, and trust in one another. Remember that in every moment you are carried by the Divine. You have that of God, the Divine spark, within you, and you get to manifest it and reflect it back to everyone you encounter every day.

So may that be so.

Amen.

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A note from Rev. Ava

The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us.

If you are a graduate or student of One Spirit Seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light and you would like to share your story, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me at beautyandgraceink@gmail.com so we can discuss featuring you in a future Sacred Refractions.

Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation. A collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Yolanda’s Zoom interview.)

What first called you to ministry, and how did that calling take shape?

Some people arrive in ministry through a single doorway, one tradition, one language, one clear yes.

I arrived through many.

From an early age, I felt drawn to God not as a concept, but as a presence. At sixteen, I encountered a music minister whose sincerity changed my life. This individual embodied devotion without judgment and made room for my queerness at a time when such welcome was rare. That encounter planted a lasting seed: this is how faith can feel; this is how love can move.

In New York in the 1980s, my spiritual curiosity widened. New Age practices, tarot, paganism, and earth-based traditions expanded my theological imagination. Eventually, I found my way to the Radical Faeries, a queer spiritual community rooted in goddess traditions, ritual, and shared life. There, I experienced deep belonging and reclaimed my name – Yolanda, aligning my outer life more closely with my inner truth.

Later, after being diagnosed as HIV positive, I was prescribed testosterone as part of my medical care, a common protocol at the time. The medication profoundly altered my body and how I was perceived in the world. Although I had never understood myself as male, I found myself navigating life in a more male-facing presentation, holding an identity that did not fully reflect my inner knowing.

It was during this period that I entered One Spirit Seminary, doing so under my birth name, Roger; this was not a declaration of self, but rather, as a reflection of how my body was being read at that time. What I carried with me into seminary was not certainty, but devotion, curiosity, and a willingness to listen deeply for truth.

How did your time at One Spirit shape your embodied understanding of identity and ministry?

Seminary became more than an education. It became a place of discernment.

As I moved through my two years at One Spirit, my understanding of myself continued to unfold. Like many students doing deep inner work, I encountered moments where language, identity, and institutional forms did not always easily align. These moments invited reflection rather than resolution, asking me to listen more carefully to what felt most true in my body and spirit.

Alongside this unfolding, I was deeply supported by mentorship. A mentor who saw me clearly, encouraged me to trust my inner knowing and to stay in conversation with what was emerging rather than rush toward answers. I was reminded that ministry is not only about honoring inherited structures, but also about responding to what the world is asking for now.

Through this process, I came to understand that trans ministers carry a particular wisdom – one rooted in embodiment, resilience, and the capacity to hold complexity with compassion. I was enthusiastically encouraged to recognize that trans ministers were truly needed out in the world to work with and companion others living into their own true identities. This understanding continues to shape my ministry today.

My orientation is non-dual: all life is one; everything in life is holy. I listen for what is already sacred and already present. I do not seek to correct experience, but to witness it until truth reveals itself.

What has transformation come to mean in your life?

As ordination approached, I felt a quiet but unmistakable invitation to step more fully into alignment. I knew that entering ministry required presence, honesty, and integrity – not perfection or certainty.

With care and intention, I asked to be ordained under the name that had always named my truth.

I crossed that threshold as Reverend Yolanda Mapes.

Transformation, as I understand it now, is not about becoming someone else. It is about remembering who we are beneath fear, shame, and separation. My life, shaped by illness, medical intervention, spiritual seeking, love, and loss, has taught me that holiness does not require comfort or coherence. It asks only for presence.

Grief, especially after the death of my beloved Glen in March 2024, has deepened my capacity to sit with suffering – my own and others’ – without rushing to fix it. I have learned that love does not disappear with loss; it changes shape and continues to teach.

Where does sacred action show up in your life now?

My ministry lives in building bridges of compassion between differing communities.

I teach, sing, preach, and guide in sanctuaries, classrooms, study groups, and everyday conversations. Sacred action shows up not only in ceremony, but in how conversations are held, how differences are honored, and how people remain in relationship, even when it feels uncomfortable.

My work does not seek spectacle. It seeks sincerity.

I am a minister not only in what I offer, but in how I live.

If you could offer a blessing to One Spirit alumni (and those who may find their way here), what would it be?

May we give thanks for all who have said yes —

Yes to Spirit.

Yes to Truth.

Yes to Becoming.

May we honor the teachers, mentors, and companions who walk beside us, especially when the path is still forming.

May we trust that simply showing up, with open hearts and open minds, is already a sacred act.

And may we remember that the world is changed not only by certainty, but by presence, courage, and love.

Amen.

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A note from Rev. Ava

The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us. If you’re a graduate or student of seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light, and you want to share your story, I would love to hear from you (contact me: beautyandgraceink@gmail.com) so that we can discuss spotlighting you in the future. Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation – a collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Toña’s Zoom interview.)

What first called you to One Spirit, and how has that calling evolved since?

For years, I felt a quiet pull toward ministry, though I didn’t really know what shape it would take. I explored different possibilities including ordination through the Unity Church and more academic theological study, but none of them felt quite right. I wanted something less rigid, less academic, something that could hold spirituality on a broader scale.

After moving from New York to New Jersey, I began attending Unity Spiritual Center of Morris County. The minister there, Rev. Elizabeth Barca, happened to be a One Spirit graduate. When I shared my interest in seminary and ministry, she spoke so highly of One Spirit that my focus shifted almost immediately. I attended an information session, then met one-on-one with a dean, and something clicked. The process felt aligned, relational, and human.

I applied, was accepted, and although my entry into the cohort was slightly delayed, that time allowed me to take electives and begin forming a relationship with the school before formally starting the program. Looking back, the timing was perfect. I had settled my family, found a spiritual home, and received encouragement from people who saw something in me that I was just beginning to recognize in myself.

Where does your ministry live now?

My ministry lives at the intersection of healthcare, spirituality, and embodied practice. Professionally, I work as a nurse in case management for a home care agency. Alongside that, I teach yoga and facilitate meditation and breathwork classes/circles, with plans to continue deepening this work through Restorative, Yin, and Yoga-Nidra trainings.

For me, it’s all interconnected. I don’t separate my spiritual life from my professional one. My practice is ongoing – prayers before work, breathwork throughout the day, moments of quiet awareness woven into everything I do. This allows me to show up calmer, more compassionate, and less reactive. I believe people can really feel the difference in my presence.

In healthcare, stress is constant and often invisible. My desire is to bring practices like breathwork, meditation, and yoga into workplaces and healthcare settings – not as something extra people must do on their own time, but as a resource woven into the workday itself. Caregivers need care, too. I want to help create spaces where people can exhale, decompress, and reconnect with themselves before burnout takes over.

I also volunteer as a mentor to nursing students, helping them explore mindfulness and spirituality in ways that feel authentic to them. Many of them are just beginning careers that will ask a great deal of their hearts. Supporting them in building inner resources feels like sacred work.

How has your understanding of leadership and service shifted?

Before this path, I worked extensively in compliance and quality management. I took everything very seriously, meaning a focus on rules, regulations, and perfection. I see now how that positioned me more as an enforcer than a collaborator. Through my spiritual practice and my time at One Spirit, something softened. I still care deeply about quality, but now I approach it relationally. I want to bring out the best in people, help them see their value, and understand how their work contributes to the whole.

One of the most practical teachings for me came not from seminary itself, but from the book The Four Agreements written by Don Miguel Ruiz. I particularly resonate with the practice of ‘not taking things personally.’ This has transformed how I relate to colleagues, family members, especially those closest to me. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel things, because my feelings run very deep, but I’ve learned to pause, create space, and respond rather than react.

This shift has changed everything. Relationships feel more collaborative, less adversarial. Leadership now looks like companionship, curiosity, and shared responsibility rather than rooted in authority and hierarchy.

What unexpected gifts did One Spirit give you?

Freedom and permission to not know.

I entered the program without a clear plan for what I would ‘do’ after graduation. Many of my classmates arrived with strong visions and defined paths. I didn’t. What surprised me was how fully this way of showing up was welcomed. There was no pressure to decide, no demand for certainty.

One Spirit gave me permission to explore – to take electives that interested me, to engage in conversations without judgment, to sit in not knowing as a legitimate spiritual stance. I didn’t have to define my spirituality or my future. I simply had to show up.

What emerged from that freedom has been deep personal growth. I have become less judgmental, more open, and more willing to encounter aspects of humanity I might once have avoided. I learned that if Spirit is truly one, then it must be all-inclusive. That realization continues to shape how I move through the world.

Perhaps the greatest gift of all was discovering, or rediscovering, myself. This opportunity has given me the freedom to be me, and to keep discovering who that is and what that means.

If you could offer a blessing to One Spirit alumni (and those who may find their way here), what would it be?

_______________________________

A note from Rev. Ava

The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us. If you’re a graduate or student of seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light, and you want to share your story, I would love to hear from you (contact me: beautyandgraceink@gmail.com) so that we can discuss spotlighting you in the future. Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation – a collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.

(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Ali’a’s Zoom interview.)

What first called you to One Spirit, and how has that calling evolved since?

I first met One Spirit on the glossy page of a magazine I almost threw away. I graduated in 2012, so this was many years ago.

I was going regularly to Wednesday night talks at East Bay Church of Religious Science in Oakland. The assistant minister there was doing a series on Harriet Tubman, and for the first time I was hearing Black liberation theology braided with metaphysics. It lit something up in me. Three girlfriends and I would meet there every week, hungry for conversation that could hold both spirit and liberation in the same breath.

One day I picked up a Science of Mind magazine, flipping through hoping for more of that kind of thinking. I didn’t find additional theology that spoke to me in that magazine, but I found an ad for One Spirit Seminary. I kept the magazine because I am not a magazine-thrower, I make collages; I keep what feels alive. The ad began to show up in my dreams. Not as a voice of God, not as a booming command, just as a page quietly drifting past like a screensaver. Over and over. For months.

I argued with it: “Why would I go to seminary? I don’t want to be a minister. I don’t know what I’d be doing there.”  But eventually, I listened. I looked up the website and felt something click into place. I remember thinking: “Oh. This is where I can talk about God without shame. This is where other people will be just as indulgent as I am, hungry for ‘God stuff’ from every angle, culture, and time period.”

I didn’t go to get a title. I went because I wanted to talk about God. To learn. To stretch. To sit in a room of people who were just as curious. And in the process, that curiosity became a calling. Seminary showed me that my love of God and my love of people weren’t separate. It gave me skills such as listening, holding space, and discernment, and it gave me the courage to bring all of who I am into service.

Where does your ministry live now, and how does it move?

For the last two years, my ministry has been moving – literally.

I don’t have a fixed home base at the moment. Since June 2023, I’ve been traveling the world: France, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, China, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Portugal, Austria, and England. I have traveled mostly alone, mostly with little more than a plane ticket and a sense of where I’m being asked to go next. The invitation has been to live simply and earnestly through study, travel, and writing; to go see the world, gather its wisdom, test my convictions, and let every place and person I encounter reshape me into someone capable of doing the work I’m here to do. (PS: I’m not done yet!)

I’ll be in Southeast Asia in winter and start getting inner ‘downloads’ about where I’m meant to be in spring; I follow this inner guidance. It’s not a vacation. It’s a pilgrimage, practice, and experiment all at once.

I’ve been practicing Nichiren Buddhism for over two decades, and the branch I’m in is deeply rooted in Buddhist humanism. Humanity is the laboratory where the teachings get tested. So my travels are a kind of self-study, spiritual study, and cultural study. I’m interested in what happens when I take my faith and my One Spirit training ‘off the page’ and into train stations, backroads, tiny jazz clubs, and neighborhoods where I clearly don’t blend in.

In Okinawa, for example, I ended up in a part of town I didn’t know was a red-light district. At first I was upset with myself, of all the places I could have chosen to stay, how did I land here? As I walked the streets, I noticed I was grumbling internally, feeling agitated. But here is the reality: no one had done anything to me. No one was talking to me. I didn’t know a soul there.

I realized: “Nothing is upsetting me outside of me. Whatever is happening right now is happening inside my own mind.”

This insight turned the whole week into practice. I watched my projections. I wondered what the men on the street saw when they saw me. I wondered how much of what I felt was mine and how much belonged to the stories I was telling about them. 

Then one night, I wandered into a tiny jazz club. No one in the room was Black or brown, no one of African descent. And yet, when the band started playing, I could hear the same emotional landscapes I know from blues, gospel, and jazz – the music that feels like it’s in my DNA. If I’d closed my eyes, I would not have known I was in Okinawa.

On the break, with the help of the drummer translating, I asked the pianist: “What have you lived that allows you to tell these stories of pain and beauty in this way?” She started crying. I started crying. We did not share a language, but we absolutely shared a field of feeling.

That night felt like a miracle of sound and soul, an embodied experience of dependent origination and interconnection.

“My ministry lives there now: in those moments when I stay open instead of closing, when I choose curiosity over defensiveness, when I trust that Spirit can move between hearts even when words can’t.”

What feels revolutionary about One Spirit right now?

“When I say it feels like being at the forefront of a revolution, I don’t mean slogans and banners. I mean we’re being asked to live our interspirituality in real time, in an era of atrocities, genocide, climate crisis, and profound fragmentation.”

Back when I was a student, Rev. Diane’s teaching felt cutting-edge to me. The quiet…the deep permission for contemplation…her spiritual authority and grounded way of holding space, all helped to form me. Part of our training was to find those same qualities within ourselves and amplify them, each in our own way.

Now, as a dean, the revolutionary piece is that we’re not there as ‘the model’ to be emulated. We’re companions. We’re midwives. We’re asking, over and over: “What are the interspiritual tactics and strategies we can employ in times of real-world harm? How does oneness speak to genocide, to oppression, to daily overwhelm?”

We’re not content with the idea of just thinking about oneness. We want to know: “How does that oneness address people’s needs in real time?”

The kaleidoscope model of multiple deans and multiple perspectives helps with this. Students get to hear different voices and different approaches that are coherent but distinct. We’re not handing down neat answers. We’re asking provocative questions and then sitting in the discomfort and unknown and discovering together.

A recent example: “I was teaching about spiritual hygiene with a co-teacher. I had created a worksheet for somatic check-ins – breath, body sensations, emotional cues. A student raised their hand and said, ‘I don’t relate to this. These signals aren’t how I get information. Is there another way to ask these questions?’”

In that moment, I realized my framework hadn’t truly considered neurodivergence, at least not in a deep way. This didn’t evoke guilt so much as a fierce commitment. It was a wake-up call: “If I say I’m devoted to inclusion, my preparation has to reflect that.”

Since then, our teaching team has sought out more resources on neurodivergent experience and other ways of knowing. I’ve shifted things that seem small but aren’t. For instance, I have started grounding breath practices on the exhale instead of the inhale for trauma-informed reasons (explanation: the exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system, signaling safety, calming the fight/flight response, reducing heart rate/anxiety, and helping to release trapped tension, effectively lowering arousal and resetting the nervous system when the body feels activated or overwhelmed). We are also paying attention to time zones so someone in Switzerland doesn’t always feel like the odd one out when we say, “Let’s break for lunch,” and it’s their dinner.

What feels revolutionary is that we’re allowing the times we’re in – the urgency, the liminality, the in-between – to shape how and what we teach. We’re people-first, not topic-first. We keep asking: “Who is in the room? What do they need to hear, feel, and experience in order to be resourced for sacred action in their communities?”

What’s the greatest gift you bring to this community as a teacher and dean?

“I think my greatest gift is sincerity.”

Years ago, I messed up something around finances with the organization, and Rev. Karen (Dean of Student Finances at the time) was holding me accountable. She was clear: “This is part of your leadership. Your spirituality includes how you show up in commitments like this.” At the end of that conversation, she said, “If this were anyone else, I might recommend something different. But I feel your sincerity.”

I hadn’t named it in myself before, but it really landed.

I don’t think I have more or less than anyone else in terms of gifts. We’re all carrying things – some we’re proud of, some we’d rather not be carrying. But sincerity is the thing I know I can offer: “a genuine commitment to the path, not for title, not for power, not for security, but because I’ve decided this is the kind of human I want to be.”

I am resolved to actualize myself in this lifetime – I wish to keep walking through the fires, to keep finding out who I am and how I can best show up. That resolve – to stay, to work it out, to keep uncovering and enjoying the layers, is what I bring to my students and colleagues. It’s the quiet message underneath everything: “I am here. I am in this with you. And I believe this work matters enough to change all of us, including me.”

If you could offer a blessing to One Spirit alumni (and those who may find their way here), what would it be?

(This is directly quoted from Rev. Ali’a, intended for each of you from her deepest heart to yours):

“It’s so sweet just to imagine the people on the other side of this page – the ones we’ve sat in circle with, prayed with, wrestled with, laughed with, wept with…and the ones we haven’t met yet.

I bless the ties that bind us across ideology, power, race, gender, class, and geography. I bless the bonds that cannot break, even when institutions wobble and structures shift. I bless the unity we are trying to remember and embody, not as an abstract ideal but as a lived reality.

May we take our talent, our time, and our energy and be creative with them – finding what is truly ours to do. May our sacred work not drain us but sustain us. May it feel good – deeply, soulfully good – to get about the business of interspirituality in our homes, workplaces, and communities.

May we add to each other’s joy as we walk side by side. And may that joy be like a juicy mango, so ripe it runs down your arm…more sweetness than you can possibly catch, enough to savor and enough to share.

And it is so. Ashe. Amen.”

_______________________________

A note from Rev. Ava

The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us. If you’re a graduate or student of seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light, and you want to share your story, I would love to hear from you (contact me: beautyandgraceink@gmail.com) so that we can discuss spotlighting you in the future. Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation—a collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

My name is Rev. Ava Schlesinger. I am a 2012 graduate of One Spirit Seminary and former board member and 2nd-year dean. Each month, I’ll turn the lens of curiosity toward a graduate whose work reflects One Spirit’s vision to: “inspire and advance the evolution of sacred consciousness in service to individuals, communities, and the earth.”

To launch this series, I’ve been invited to begin with my own story. I will do my best to humbly, openly, and honestly share a little about my own One Spirit – choose-your-own-adventure experience. It is a journey, probably much like your own, weaving my lived personal and professional experience with a desire to be of purpose and service in this profoundly complicated, and sacred, human life.

What first called you to One Spirit?

At the time, I had just finished a two-year respite from a decade of clinical social work, most of it spent with adults healing from childhood sexual abuse. I had been completely burned out, but I was beginning to feel ready to reengage with work in some way. My daughter had just left for Oberlin College to study world religions and began sending me her papers to edit. I was fascinated and somehow lit up. I wanted to study, too – not to get a degree or become a minister necessarily, but to explore the language of meaning and metaphor her writing had awakened in me.

I began searching for programs, but every M.Div. or doctoral program I found felt too Christian-centered (I identify as Jewish), too bound by a tradition that didn’t quite fit. Then, almost by accident, I stumbled upon One Spirit. With few expectations and a lot of excitement, I began my first year of seminary.

My first year was goodish, though marked by ambivalence. One year under my belt and I could hardly use the word God in a sentence without cringing. I nearly dropped out after another student at the first-year intensive asked why I would be there if I didn’t have a deep and abiding belief in God. I remember feeling gutted – maybe they were right, maybe I didn’t belong, echoing a lifelong sense of not quite fitting in. Rev. David Wallace, who happened to be in earshot of the conversation, turned to me after the other student left and gently offered his wisdom. He suggested that if I wasn’t sure what I believed, then I was actually in exactly the right place. We spoke for a while – eager to have more of this kind of conversation, I chose to stay on for year two.

David ended up being my second-year dean, and under his guidance and companionship, I began to understand that the word God – a word I had always resisted – was, for me, interchangeable with the word Love. That realization reshaped so much of what had become a barrier to surrendering to what I have come to understand as God. One Spirit had gifted me with language and meaning for what I had already been living; for this I will be forever grateful.

Do you identify as a minister in the world?

I really do, but it might surprise you to hear that what I am doing is tattooing. Just as Covid was lifting, I longed to get off Zoom and be in the presence of living, breathing people. In the recesses of my mind, I remembered that I had heard about tattoo artists who were tattooing areolas and nipples on people who had lost their own due to cancer, trans-affirming top surgery, or other surgical procedures. Before I was a social worker, I had been an art director, and I had this wild idea that this would be an amazing intersection of my training as an artist, trauma therapist, and minister.

I will tell you that the learning curve was much steeper than I expected, but I refused to give up. I have been a tattoo artist for about four years at this point. I fully see my work as a ministry of touch, trust, and transformation – a continuation of what I first learned at One Spirit: that love is the Divine at work in the world. I have a mission to offer this service to anyone who wants it, using a sliding scale which makes it affordable and accessible to all.

Each session is a collaboration, a sacred exchange between my client and me. Whether I’m restoring an areola after breast cancer or trans-affirming surgery, camouflaging a scar, or creating fine-line art that marks a personal milestone, the work is always about helping individuals find a sense of healing and wholeness. It’s a ministry of presence as much as of skill. I listen, breathe, and move slowly, allowing this artistry to become a language of healing. For many, the process becomes a quiet ritual of reclamation – body, story, and spirit realigned. In this space, the sacred isn’t lofty or distant; it lives in the ordinary, or rather, extraordinary moment when someone looks in the mirror and sees their beauty, grace, healing, and wholeness reflected back.

Where do your personal experiences intersect with your capacity to serve?

About nine months ago, this question stopped being a soft background rumination asking me to live into my work with consciousness and presence. Just as I was finally ready to concentrate on marketing and networking with the hopes of building my tattoo practice, my 33-year-old daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer. Everything in me shifted – my sense of time, of purpose, of what really matters. The very work I do for others – helping people reclaim their bodies after trauma and surgery – suddenly became the work I was watching my own child prepare to need.

There’s a wound that opens when you love someone who is suffering, and at the same time, there seems to be an ancient knowing that rises to meet it. My capacity to serve has grown right alongside my heartbreak. The empathy I thought I understood has deepened into something bone-deep and raw. Some days I think I should just close my practice, and other days it feels like I am in exactly the right place at the right time. If inclined, please add my daughter Brianna to your prayers… it would mean a lot.

My daughter’s journey has stripped away any sense of separation between my life, my work, and my very existence in the world. I’ve come to a brand-new understanding of the illusion of separateness – there truly is no ‘other.’ I know I’m supposed to appreciate this awareness, but sometimes the illusion feels easier, even comforting, and I find myself longing for it to return in all its misunderstood glory! This experience has been a very difficult part of my journey, both professionally and personally.

At this juncture, I am giving myself permission to allow time and space to intersect with my plan to focus on building my business; I am honestly and authentically (perhaps for the very first time) not attached to the outcome. My intention is for my tattoo studio to flourish as I aim to serve, but it’s also OK if that is not how the story unfolds. I surrender. 

What do you hope future ministers learn from your journey?

I would love to inspire a living, breathing notion that you don’t need to fit your ministry into a box someone else built – especially if you feel as if what you have to offer isn’t good enough, important enough, or traditionally ‘ministerial’ enough. I believe that, especially right now, the world needs ministers in boardrooms and at protest marches, behind the scenes and on the front lines.

We are needed in tattoo studios, art studios, kitchens, hospitals, animal shelters, courtrooms, and classrooms – you get the idea. Truly, we need to show up anywhere and everywhere where love, courage, authenticity, and vulnerability move the needle toward love, peace, and connection. I believe with all my heart that the light we carry from One Spirit is infinite; it never fades, even when we feel we aren’t ‘doing’ enough – it simply bends and refracts, finding its way into the world through the diverse, creative paths our divine energy chooses.

If you could offer a blessing to your fellow One Spirit graduates/students, what would it be?

May your work find you, even when you feel lost.
May you remember that ministry wears many disguises – a brush, a spreadsheet, a prayer, a meal.
May you trust that what you offer matters, even when no one’s watching.

Thank you for taking the time to read this first offering of Sacred Refractions. My hope is that something in it touches a chord, reminds you of your own unfolding, or simply lets you feel a little less alone on this wild, sacred path. The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving – bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us.

If you’re a graduate or student of seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects that light, and you want to share your story, I would love to hear from you (contact me: beautyandgraceink@gmail.com) so that we can discuss spotlighting you in the future. Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation – a collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.

With love and curiosity,
Ava

P.S. If you or anyone you know might like more information about paramedical tattooing, areola repigmentation, or scar camouflage, please visit my website at https://www.beautyandgraceink.com/ or Instagram @beautyandgraceinknyc.

When I first began leading at One Spirit, I got a lot of pushback from my Christian community.

It wasn’t blatant, open questioning—it was more of a lingering “Are you sure about that?” that hung in the air whenever I would talk about my work.

So much of the Christian identity is about being separate. I’m reminded of the verse where Jesus says:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”(Matthew 10:34).

I understand the call in that verse—the need to ritualize a kind of consecration, to be exclusively used by God. But in this season, authentic coalition building is necessary. The times demand that we come together across difference, without losing the depth of our convictions, to resist the forces that would keep us apart.

What made me know this was the work for me was the vision of justice and solidarity—a spirituality of interdependence made possible.

I had always worked in fields committed to building momentum and capacity for people from different races and vantage points to work together to build a more just and loving society.

So the idea of rooting that kind of solidarity in spirituality not only made sense to me—it was a welcome strategy that brought together two key values in my life. The theory that undergirds this is the notion that we are all connected by a common source.

We are all created by God and made in God’s image—Imago Dei.

Many religions echo this truth in their own ways: that there is a divine imprint in every person, and that to harm another is to harm something sacred. Whether in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or countless Indigenous traditions, this conviction grounds the belief that every human life carries infinite worth.

Some call it Spirit. Some call it God. Others call it the Universe. What matters isn’t the name—it’s that we recognize a shared responsibility for one another. That’s the work we need right now.

That’s the kind of leadership, friendship, and community that challenges division the most.

For me, that means building in a way that doesn’t just serve my own growth, but reinforces the truth we’re all a part of something bigger.

That our lives are tied together.

That there is no “them.”

There is only “us.”

Courtney Bryant

CEO, One Spirit Learning Alliance

When we look upon the aftermath of a fracture, it's not the "creation" as an outcome that needs most of our attention, rather it's "the intention of the creator" that requires the majority of our focus. What is my intention, what is your intention, what is our collective intention when it comes to restoration?  Are we first and foremost, restoring love in our hearts, compassion in our thinking, relationship in our actions?  And how do we do that when we have so many thoughts and feelings to move through?  BREATH is how we do it.  Breath doesn't  “do” anything with all of those feelings yet it does allow us “to be with" them instead of feeling at the effect of, victimized by, powerless in the face of them.  Breath enables us to "have our feelings instead of our feelings having us."  Breath can ground, center, restore, renew, uplift and connect us to ourselves, one another, the world.  Through breath and connecting to The Divine Within, we access our agency, own our sovereignty, stand in our power and engage with our world and each other from our interconnectedness.  

Relational repair is only possible from our interconnectedness.  It is the consciousness of our interconnectedness that we need to renew for restoration to be fulfilled and transformative.  Thus, we invited the community (past and present) to come together at the end of July for a moment to “catch our breath and take a breath.”  Not as a bypass of the fracture but as an acknowledgment of the byproduct of BREATH as the ever present container that holds each and every one of us right where we are and just as we are….every experience, every emotion, every expression and every embodiment of our humanity.  Breath is the “active” presence of Oneness that holds ALL OF US AND ALL OF LIFE. Perhaps if we allow our awareness of it as such, it may serve as the pathway to “activating Oneness” on every level of our existence—-individually, collectively, environmentally and globally. 

Just as breath restores our minds, bodies and souls individually, let's allow it to do the same collectively. Let us collectively breathe in the words, "I Love You" as we breathe out the words, "I'm Sorry."  Let us breathe in the words, "Please forgive me" as we breathe out the words, "Thank You."  Let us allow breath to restore Oneness, the practice of Ho'oponopono to restore wholeness and our "nephesh" to breathe new life into our sense of spiritual solidarity as Community.

—Rev. Laurene Williams
Seminary Class of 2013, ISCC Class of 2017