GETTING BACK TO NORMAL
AND OTHER LIES WE TELL OURSELVES

Flint Sparks

A Zen teacher and former psychologist dedicated to assisting people in the unending path of growing up and waking up, Flint Sparks is an experienced therapist and a master teacher who assists people in the skillful removal of blocks to love, both inside and outside. He is a clear and caring resource on the path of freedom from unnecessary suffering.
Flint has nearly four decades of experience in the practice and teaching of psychotherapy. He is also a Zen teacher who leads retreats throughout North America and Europe.

DID YOU SING YOUR SONG

Mary C. Earle

Mary Earle is an Episcopal Priest, Author, Poet, Retreat Leader and Spiritual Director. Until her retirement, she taught classes in spirituality for the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. Mary has authored ten books; the subjects include the spirituality of living with illness, rule of life, Celtic Christian spirituality, the Desert Mothers, and Julian of Norwich. Her latest is a book of her poetry.

Mary and her husband Doug live in San Antonio, Texas with their border collie, Fiona, a cat named Xochí, and lots of garden flora and fauna. Mary is also a knitter and weaver, so her office is full of skeins and balls of yarn.

WHAT WOULD BRING PEACE

Dr. Terry Mc Gonigal

After 26 years of service to Whitworth University, Terry McGonigal, Ph.D., recently retired from his position as the director of the university’s Office of Church Engagement (OCE). He continues to support pastors and the office’s large network of churches while returning to his teaching roots, filming his signature Shalom class in 2020, and sharing it with others around the country.
McGonigal came to Whitworth in 1994 as a campus pastor and associate professor of theology. He served as dean of spiritual life for 20 years before helping establish the Office of Church Engagement in 2014. He and his wife reside in Pasadena, California.

RETURNING TO THE WORLD

Paula D’Arcy

Writer, retreat leader, and conference and seminar speaker, Paula D’Arcy is also President of Red Bird Foundation, which supports the growth and spiritual development of those in need as well as those invested in the opening of the heart and the healing of this world. A former psychotherapist who ministered to those facing issues of grief and loss, Paula worked with the Peale Foundation, founded by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, from 1980 until his death in 1993, and has written 13 books.

BEING WITH THE DIVINE

Rabbi Rami Shapiro

A Jewish practitioner of Perennial Wisdom, Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award–winning author of over thirty-six books on religion and spirituality. He received rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and holds a PH.D. in religion from Union Graduate School.

A rabbinic chaplain with the USAF for 3 years, a congregational rabbi for 20, and a professor of religious studies for 10, Rabbi Rami currently co-directs the One River Foundation (www.oneriverfoundation.org), is a Contributing Editor at Spirituality and Health magazine, and hosts the magazine’s bi-weekly podcast, Essential Conversations with Rabbi Rami (www.spiritualityhealth.com).

BEING WITH THE DIVINE

Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson is an artist, writer, and United Methodist minister who serves as director of The Wellspring Studio, LLC. Her work has attracted an international audience drawn to the spaces of welcome, imagination, and solace that she creates in both word and image. Jan’s books include The Cure for Sorrow, In the Sanctuary of Women, and the just-released Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life. She is especially known as a crafter of blessings that enter deeply into our human experience.

Jan makes her home in Florida. She often collaborated with her husband, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles, until his sudden death in December 2013.

BEING WITH THE DIVINE

Pastor John Garland

John Garland leads a Healing Hospitality ministry for Asylum Seekers and he pastors the San Antonio Mennonite Church a mile south of the city center. Each morning he leads Psalm-based prayers, works with those held in immigration prisons, and supports the community of asylum-seekers centered in the church.

He is currently doing doctoral work on communal trauma, spiritual resilience, and the Psalms. He is a fellow at the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty. He is the National Association of Social Workers’ Texas 2020 Public Citizen of the Year.

Most recently he has traveled extensively in Central America, visiting rural churches on the border of Honduras and Guatemala that are living through violence, poverty, and governmental failures. Mennonites are pacifists. John pastors with an applied theology of Christianity as a trauma-transforming faith movement, he reads Scripture as divinely inspired through–and for–deeply traumatized communities, and understands hospitality, story, and prayer-centered community as the most powerful tools of healing.

GOING DEEPER…

Pastor John Garland

Pastor John Garland offered two 1-hour follow up sessions after the initial 90-minute program. In these sessions he was able to spend more time on how best to use the Psalms for healing trauma. We recommend viewing the original session first. If you’re eager for more (as most are), then come back and register for “Going Deeper” for access to both follow up sessions.