Wednesday, January 21, 2026
View recording of this session and join us for the follow-up conversation on Saturday

Ngnedjou Françoise Fouté is a public health specialist, community leader, and President of the Family Health and Development Foundation (FAHEDEF) in Yaoundé, Cameroon. With training in nursing and public health, and as a PhD candidate in International Development, Françoise has devoted her life and work to community-driven development rooted in compassion, dignity, and care for the most vulnerable.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026
2:00-3:00 pm PST / 3:00 MST / 4:00 pm CST / 5:00 EST / 10:00 pm GMT / 11:00 pm CET / (Thurs) Jan 22 6:00 am AWST, 9:00 am AEDT

The Interfaith Amigos—Imam Jamal Rahman and Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Ph.D., along with their guest Margaret Somerville, MDiv, DMin, join together for a thoughtful conversation on interfaith friendship. Together they reflect on how we can learn from and share across traditions while honoring boundaries and avoiding appropriation, modeling respectful and relational interfaith engagement.

Wednesday March 18, 2026
2:00–2:30 pm PDT / 3:00 pm MDT / 4:00 pm CDT / 5:00 pm EDT / 10:00 pm GMT / 11:00 pm CET / (Thurs) March 19, 6:00 am AWST, 9:00 am AEDT

David Cassian Cole runs an interfaith retreat centre in the UK. He is an author of numerous books, an international spirtual teacher, Spiritual Guide, and member of the 'Friends and Oblates of Shantivanam', the Ashram which Bede Griffiths ran. 

Join the Sanskrit chants, thoughts inspired by Bede Griffiths' teaching on how non dualistic living can heal our fragmented world, and discussion on how we can practically live this out.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026
2:00–2:30 pm PDT / 3:00 pm MDT / 4:00 pm CDT / 5:00 pm EDT / 9:00 pm GMT / 11:00 pm CEST / (Thurs) April 23: 5:00 am AWST, 7:00 am AEST

Kathy McGregor is a storyteller who uses story as a healing practice with people impacted by incarceration. In 2012, she founded the Prison Story Project in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a creative writing and storytelling program for incarcerated people. In 2016, the Project expanded to Arkansas’ death row at Varner Prison, offering storytelling classes to men facing execution. Their work was curated into On the Row, a staged reading and film.

Wednesday, May 20, 2026: Online Visit with Françoise
2:00–3:00 pm PDT / 3:00 pm MDT / 4:00 pm CDT / 5:00 pm EDT / 9:00 pm GMT / 11:00 pm CEST / Thurs, May 21: 5:00 am AWST / 7:00 am AEST 

Patty Krawec is an Anishinaabe/Ukrainian writer, speaker, and organizer from Lac Seul First Nation (Treaty 3 territory). She is a founding director of the Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation, which challenges settlers to “pay their rent” on Indigenous land. Patty is the author of Becoming Kin and Bad Indians Book Club. Her work explores how Indigenous storytelling and belonging can reshape faith, justice, and collective liberation, emphasizing how stories connect us.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026
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Ngnedjou Françoise Fouté is a public health specialist, community leader, and President of the Family Health and Development Foundation (FAHEDEF) in Yaoundé, Cameroon. With training in nursing and public health, and as a PhD candidate in International Development, Françoise has devoted her life and work to community-driven development rooted in compassion, dignity, and care for the most vulnerable.

December 13, 2025
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HALEH LIZA GAFORI is a performance artist, translator, vocalist, poet, and musician born in NYC of Persian descent. WATER is her second volume after her acclaimed book of translations, GOLD, Poems by Rumi was published in 2022. A bicultural woman with ears tuned to the music of American free verse as well as to the subtleties of the Persian text, Gafori aims to transmit the whirling movement and leaping progression of thought and imagery in Rumi’s poems into contemporary American poetry.

Co-sponsored by the Charter for Compassion

November 12, 2025
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Explore the knowledge held within the living world of trees and planted within each of us. Drawing on extensive experience in both forest ecology and spirituality, Beth Norcross and Leah Rampy invite us into a deep mutual relationship with trees whose wisdom provides comfort, resilience, guidance, and hope. Beth is the founder of the Center for Spirituality in Nature. Leah served as the Executive Director of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation and now leads contemplative, Earth-based retreats and classes.
Co-sponsored by the Charter for Compassion

October 15, 2025
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Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, public speaker. and an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation. In Everything Is a Story, she considers how stories take root in our lives like an acorn that grows into an oak tree. Following a story's life cycle, Kaitlin explores how narratives shape both our inner lives and our broader communities.

With a foreword by Simran Jeet Singh, Everything Is a Story offers a hope-filled framework for reshaping our lives by reclaiming stories of courage, wholeness, and deep-rooted compassion.

September 17, 2025
View recorded session with Cassidy Hall

Cassidy Hall, an LGBTQIA+ Christian contemplative scholar and podcast host, takes us on a journey to queer the contemplative tradition. For Hall, queering is not solely about identifying as queer or applying queer theory; it is about what is gained by seeing things differently.

Cassidy invites us into conversation and curiosity about what it might mean for us to queer our own experiences with contemplative life. We explore the ways we’re already engaged in contemplation, and how our own traditions and practices can enliven us to the depth of our interconnection.

May 21, 2025
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Dr. Maureen Sier is Executive Director of Interfaith Scotland and a member of the Bahá’í Faith, which shaped her engagement with the sacred across religious traditions and informed both her academic path and interfaith work. Her doctoral research in Samoa focused on religion, culture, and anthropology, particularly the experiences of Indigenous women, and resulted in her book Women and Religion in Samoa: Empowerment and Constraint. Her work continues to explore how religion can both empower and constrain, and how diverse traditions can help build more inclusive and welcoming communities.

View recorded session with lenny duncan

Black Power and Black Magic/k: The Case To Re-Enchant History as Resistance to Oppression. Lenny duncan (they/them) is a writer, speaker, scholar, former Lutheran pastor, and media producer working at the forefront of racial justice in America. Lenny is the author of Dear Church, United States of Grace, Psalms of my People, and Dear Revolutionaries, and a co-creator of the podcast BlackBerryJams with PRX. They are also a writer for the new Meow Wolf Exhibit opening in LA 26. They are currently a PhD  and FTE Fellow in historical and cultural studies of religion, at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkley.

View recorded session
with Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher

Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD, is an award-winning translator and professor, poet, and workshop leader. Carmen is well-known for her accurate and also reader-friendly, accessible, hospitable translations of transformative spiritual classics that teach ancient, evergreen practices of the Christian tradition. Her Cloud of Unknowing translation received a 46th Georgia Author of the Year Award, and her translation of Practice of the Presence by Brother Lawrence was named on the Spirituality & Practice Best Books of 2022 List.

View recorded session with Chelan Harkin

Chelan Harkin, mystic poet and author, will tell her story of what she calls, “the magic carpet ride” of her publishing journey from being a self-published poet with no contacts in the publishing world to having a book deal with Penguin Random House in just three years time. She shares this story, interspersed with her poetry, to inspire deeper understanding of some of the principles of a new paradigm of relating to reality—one of connecting with Life’s desires within us, moving through emotional obstacles to bringing them forward and leaning fully on wild grace. embrace of our wholeness.

View recorded session with Patty Krawec

Patty Krawec is an Anishinaabe/Ukrainian writer and speaker belonging to Lac Seul First Nation in Treaty 3 territory and residing in Niagara Falls. She has served on the board of the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre and co hosted the Medicine for the Resistance podcast. 

She cofounded the Nii'kinaaganaa Foundation with journalist Nora Loreto and Blackfoot activist Terril Tailfeathers. Nii’kinaaganaa challenges settlers to pay their rent for living on Indigenous lands and then disperses that money to Indigenous people and organizations who are building their communities in a variety of creative ways.

View recorded session with Danté Stewart

Danté Stewart is the author of debut memoir Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle, a stirring meditation on being Black and learning to love in a loveless, anti-Black world.

Stewart uses his personal experiences as a vehicle to reclaim and reimagine spiritual virtues like rage, resilience, and remembrance—and explores how these virtues might function as a work of love against an unjust, unloving world.Stewart reveals the profound faith he discovered even after experiencing the violence of the American church: a faith that loves Blackness; speaks truth to pain and trauma; and pursues a truer, realer kind of love than the kind we’re taught, a love that sets us free.

View recorded session with Hila Ratzabi

Hila Ratzabi is a poet and workshop leader with a special interest in the environment and spirituality. She is the author of the poetry collection There Are Still Woods (June Road Press, 2022), which won a gold Nautilus Book Award and was a finalist for a National Indie Excellence Award. Ratzabi regularly offers workshops and talks on environmental poetry, Jewish poetry, and on the wisdom of the Jewish spiritual writer Etty Hillesum. From 2015–2023, she ran Ritualwell.org, publishing innovative Jewish rituals, poetry, and liturgy and curating online learning experiences. She currently works as a director of communications and lives in Oak Park, Illinois, outside Chicago

View recorded session with Kashmir Maryam

Kashmir Maryam is an acclaimed author and poet who is making waves in the literary world with her unique insights on mindfulness, spirituality, and personal growth. Born in England and of Kashmiri heritage, she offers a fresh perspective on the intersection of spirituality and modern life. Her books have resonated deeply with readers, providing guidance on self-care, inner peace, and finding purpose and meaning through an Islamic framework.

Kashmir Maryam is a dedicated marriage and family therapist who has helped numerous individuals and families navigate their relationships and personal challenges.

iew recorded session with Sunita Viswanath

Sunita Viswanath and has worked for over 30 years in women’s rights and human rights organizations, co-founding the following organizations:
Hindus for Human Rights (2019); Sadhana (2011) in order to mobilize Hindu Americans to connect their faith to social justice and human rights. Sunita discusses the tenets of a radically inclusive Hinduism which stands opposed to caste and all forms of hate and bigotry, what her guru and mentor Anantanand Rambachan calls, "A Hindu Theology of Liberation." She will discuss the urgent need for such a liberatory Hindu faith and practice at a time when Hindu supremacy (Hindutva) is entrenching the Hindu community in India and worldwide.

View recorded session with Brian McLaren

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a core faculty member and Dean of Faculty for the Center for Action and Contemplation. and a podcaster with Learning How to See.

In “A New Kind of Christianity” (HarperOne, 2010), Brian articulated ten questions that are central to the emergence of a postmodern, post-colonial Christian faith. His 2011 HarperOne release, “Naked Spirituality,” offers “simple, doable, and durable” practices to help people deepen their life with God.

View recorded session with Rabbi Marcia Prager

Rabbi Marcia Prager, MFA, MHL, D.Min.h.c., is the Emerita founding Director and Dean of the ALEPH Ordination Program, a rigorous innovative liberal Jewish seminary. She co-directs and teaches in the prize-winning Davvenen’ Leadership Training Institute, a residential retreat-based training program in the high art of Jewish prayer leadership and spiritual growth. She serves as rabbi of the P’nai Or Jewish Renewal Congregation of Philadelphia, PA. and is the author of The Path of Blessing,  a contemporary hasidic text exploring the Jewish practice of blessing,  and has created the P’nai Or Siddurim (prayer books) for Shabbat. In 2010, she was selected by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the Top Fifty American Female Rabbis. 

View recorded session Randy Woodley

Randy Woodley, PhD is an activist/farmer, distinguished speaker, public intellectual and wisdom keeper who addresses a variety of issues concerning American culture, faith/spirituality, justice, race/diversity, climate crisis, regenerative farming, our relationship with the earth and Indigenous realities. He was raised near Detroit, Michigan and is a Cherokee Indian descendant recognized by the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. 
Edith Woodley, (Eastern Shoshone tribal member) and Randy are co-sustainers at Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds, a regenerative farm, school, community, and ceremonial grounds.

View recorded session with Imam Jamal Rahman

Imam Jamal Rahman is a popular speaker on Islam, Sufi spirituality, and interfaith relations. Along with his Interfaith Amigos, he has been featured in the New York Times, CBS News, BBC, and various NPR programs. Jamal is co-founder and Muslim Sufi minister at Interfaith Community Sanctuary and adjunct faculty at Seattle University and Pacific Lutheran University.

Jamal is the author and co-author of many books, including Sacred Laughter of the Sufis: Awakening the Soul with the Mullah's Comic Teaching Stories and Other Islamic Wisdom; Spiritual Gems of Islam: Insights & Practices from the Qur'an, Hadith, Rumi & Muslim Teaching Stories to Enlighten the Heart & Mind; and Religion Gone Astray: What We Found at the Heart of Interfaith.

View recorded session with Heidi Barr

Heidi Barr is a writer and wellness coach whose work is founded on a commitment to cultivating ways of being that are life-giving and sustainable for people, communities, and the planet. She is the author of several books of creative nonfiction, including Collisions of Earth and Sky and 12 Tiny Things, two poetry collections, and one cookbook, as well as editor of "The Mindful Kitchen," a wellness column in The Wayfarer Magazine. One of the inaugural Poets of Place for the lower St. Croix Valley, her poetry has been featured in numerous publications, including the St. Paul Almanac and South Dakota in Poems. She lives with her family in rural Minnesota, where they tend a large vegetable garden, explore nature, and do their best to live simply. Subscribe to her newsletter Ordinary Collisions at heidibarr.substack.com.

Bronwen Henry

Bronwen Mayer Henry is a self-taught painter specializing in trees and flowers on large scale canvases with acrylic paints. Her work is filled with movement, light, color, and a sense of freedom.  

It was an unexpected path through Thyroid Cancer (in 2018) that led Bronwen to commit time to painting. This beginning continues to be reflected in her large scale work and playful approach to color. Her art is an expression of prayer, meditation, hope and joy. She describes herself as “a person facing her fears with a brush, and choosing joy over perfection.” She leads workshops and retreats helping others to break through creative barriers. She has published a book exploring how this cancer treatment lit up her creative practice, “Radioactive Painting” published by Shanti Arts LLC. 

View recorded session with Belden Lane

Belden C. Lane is a storyteller and wilderness backpacker whose teaching and writing have focused largely on the importance of place in the spiritual life. What draws Catholics to a sacred site for healing at Chimayo in New Mexico? Why were early Celtic Christians fascinated by sacred trees and the wild landscape of Iona off the coast of Scotland? How did the Baal Shem Tov, a Hassidic Rebbe, experience God in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine? Belden’s particular love of desert terrain and his studies in the history of spirituality have taken him to the deserts of Egypt, the Australian Outback, and the American Southwest. 

His books include The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice, and The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul.

View recorded session with Kaitlin Curtice

Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersections of spirituality and identity and how that shifts throughout our lives. She also speaks on these topics to diverse audiences who are interested in truth-telling and healing.

As an inter-spiritual advocate, Kaitlin participates in conversations on topics such as colonialism in faith communities, and she has spoken at many conferences on the importance of inter-faith relationships.

Besides her books, Kaitlin has written online for Sojourners, Religion News Service, Apartment Therapy, On Being, SELF Magazine, and more. Her work has been featured on CBS and in USA Today. She also writes at The Liminality Journal. Kaitlin lives in Philadelphia with her fami

View recorded session with John Philip Newell

John Philip Newell is a renowned Celtic teacher, spiritual leader, and award-winning author whose work calls the modern world to reawaken to the sacredness of Earth and the dignity of every human being. Drawing on the wisdom of the Celtic Christian tradition, he weaves together poetry and intellect, contemplative practice and public engagement, inviting a spirituality that is both deeply rooted and urgently responsive to the challenges of our time. In his latest award-winning book, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul, Newell explores the integration of spiritual awareness with political, ecological, and social concern, offering a vision of faith that honors inner transformation and collective responsibility. Through his writing, teaching, and international speaking, he continues to inspire movements for justice, peace, and the healing of the Earth.

iew recorded session with Haleh Liza Gafori

Helah Liza Gafori is a translator, vocalist, poet, and educator born in New York City of Iranian/Persian descent. She grew up hearing recitations of Persian poetry and has maintained and deepened her connection through singing and translating the poetry of various Persian poets. Her book, GOLD, is the beautiful translation of poems by Rumi, the 13th century sage and mystic.

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VALARIE KAUR is a renowned social justice leader, lawyer, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and best-selling author of SEE NO STRANGER. She is the founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, where she leads a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice. Valarie burst into global consciousness when her Watch Night Service address went viral with 40 million views worldwide. Her question — “Is this the darkness of the tomb, or the darkness of the womb?” — is a beacon for people fighting for our future. 

Valarie’s vision is deeply inspired by her Sikh faith. A daughter of Punjabi farmers, Valarie grew up on the farmlands of California, where her family has lived for more than a century. Her grandfather gave her Sikh wisdom through stories and songs that showed the way of the sant-sipahi, sage-warrior. The sage loves; the warrior fights — it is a path of revolutionary love. 

View recorded session with Juliet Patterson

Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide (Milkweed Editions, September 2022) and two full-length poetry collections, Threnody, (Nightboat Books 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and The Truant Lover, (Nightboat Books, 2006), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award.

A recipient of the Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in non-fiction, and a Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, she has also been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Creative Community Leadership Institute. She teaches creative writing and literature at St. Olaf College and is also a faculty member and director of the college’s Environmental Conversations program.

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Therese Taylor-Stinson, a native of Washington, DC, is an ordained deacon and elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), a certified lay pastoral caregiver, and the founding managing member of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, Ltd. A graduate of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, she has served on the board of directors, is a member of the Shalem Society for Contemplative Leadership. In her private spiritual direction practice, she companions people from various walks of life who seek a closer relationship with God, clarity about their calls to ministry, and healing from life’s traumas. She served on the Coordinating Council for Spiritual Directors International (SDI) and is currently a member of SDI’s Editorial Review Panel for Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. Her articles “Black Spirituality and the Art of Spiritual Direction” (December 2009) and “Spiritual Direction as Sacred Activism” (March 2014) are published in Presence.

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Dr. Holmes is a spiritual teacher and writer focused on African American spirituality, mysticism, cosmology and culture. She is President Emerita of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (2012-2016). She also served as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Memphis Theological Seminary (2005-2010). She holds the title of Professor Emerita of Ethics and African American Religious Studies at that seminary. She is a core faculty member with The Center for Action and Contemplation founded by Fr. Richard Rohr.

Holmes was called to ministry while working as a corporate lawyer for the J.C. Penney Corporation and was ordained in the Latter Rain Apostolic Holiness Church in Dallas, Texas. Today, she has privilege of call in the United Church of Christ and recognition of ministerial standing in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Dr. Holmes grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a member of Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church.