Certificates

I hold many certificates in areas such as meditation, hypnotherapy, grief, anxiety and trauma, adult ADHD, Touch Drawing Facilitation, Creative Fitness, Movement Chaplaincy, end of life doula studies for people and companion animals, holistic companion animal nutrition,
spiritual direction, master spiritual life coaching,
and others including a 2 year program in studying the psycho, bio,
sociological aspects of over 200 Mollusks!
Ask me, I'll tell you cool mollusk stuff.

One of My Most Meaningful Awards:

The Howard Thurman Community Building award was a complete surprise.

This award had not been given out in over a decade. I was going about my business in seminary, being me, doing what I do. I was grounded, helpful, organizing, clear, connecting, involved.
 Much of what I do is nothing flashy, or could be behind the scenes, like linking with and supporting my cohort members and seminary community.
I also was a developer and facilitator of the UN World Interfaith Harmony Week.

Whatever the admin saw in me was my unique spark shining, as I am, as I came here to be.
It is lovely to be witnessed when you're not striving or trying, when you are just you-ing around.
So often in this world, we don't see the sparkle in each other or our own selves. It was very special to be surprised that my heart and intention had been seen as enough and exemplary in some way.

Howard Thurman is an aspirational person for me, and to be awarded in his name sets like a star as I navigate my Self.

What is an Interfaith Minister?

The concept of Interfaith Ministry was brought forth by a rabbi, a priest, and an imam.  I don't know if they walked into a bar. It was NYC, so maybe?  

They were driven to form a bridge to peace through engaged, spiritual curiosity, compassion, and communion. The formation of a divine community over a dogmatic one was born. It is a purposeful quest for the common ground. We explore the growing edge of spirituality and social transformation. It isn't about absolutes.

An Interfaith Minister has their own faith practices and root traditions,
and is not necessarily Christian. There is no one faith unifying interfaith ministers.
Rather, an Interfaith Minister is dedicated to personal empowerment and social transformation through an ever deepening relationship with the Divine in All Life, and our inter-being.
We then create connections and community from these spaces of dignity and courage.  

This was an intentional form of sacred activism at its inception and this is what I believe also.
I was ordained as an interfaith minister in the late 1980's, and re-ordained - think renewing your vows - when I completed my doctorate in 2021. A lot of life happens in those decades that shift and yet the commitment to peace, dignity, wholeness only grew.

In the 1980's I first came upon the Interfaith concept. I was raising a little baby on my own and studying to be a nurse in the NYC area. This time was also the height of the AIDS pandemic. The political and societal struggles were hostile to say the least, and I knew there was another way we could grow as a world culture to improve the way we treated one another and our own being, if we knew how. Hospice was a newly rooting care model, and mixed with the interfaith movement lit up an integrated path in this direction. As a young adult, forming my beliefs and next steps, these were the elements that brought my career into soulful purpose and alignment.