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About

Liza (they/she/them)

I grew up in San Diego communing with ocean and desert and studying the performing arts.  I moved to Massachusetts to study at Hampshire College. While there I studied spiritual expression through writing and dance culminating in a year-long project focused around Mary Magdalene. For the next decade I worked with survivors of sexual assault and relationship violence in the community, in high schools, colleges, and domestic violence shelters.  At Yale Divinity School I studied liberation theologies and reconciliation becoming an ordained United Church of Christ minister in 2004.  I went on to serve as a parish minister and was the founding Director of Spiritual Life at Hampshire College for 14 years. I co-founded La Alianza de Trans Solicitantes de Asilo Minesterios (Trans Asylum Seekers Ministry Alliance) an interfaith network providing support to Trans Asylum Seekers. Currently I live in Minnesota, where in addition to spiritual direction and writing, I serve elders living on the margins.

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Experience

Spiritual Director

Beyond Yale, I studied spiritual direction at Still Harbor, "where spirituality and social justice meet."  Still Harbor trains spiritual directors from the standpoint of the understanding of spirituality as that which cultivates the imagination, courage and resilience to create a more kind, equitable, and sustainable world.  Although below this paragraph you will see a list of work I've done over the last few decades, my experience comes also from those I love and who love me, those who have formed me in education, inspiration, and the ancestors whose blood and bone fed mine.  My experience comes from my work for justice in the world, my comittment to dismantling white supremacy and oppression of all kinds, embodying a theology of reconciliation, and learning to walk with reciprocity in relationship to the earth as a whole. 

Qualifications

2018-present

Seala ag Canadh Spiritual Direction

2004-2018

Director of Spiritual Life

2015-2016

Spiritual Direction Certification, Still Harbor

2014-2016

Faculty Associate

2003-2012

Parish Ministry

2005

Director of Women's Center

2004

Clinical Pastoral Education, Baystate Hospital

2001-2004

Yale Divinity School, MDiv

1996-2004

Rape Crisis Counselor

1991-1995

Hampshire College, BA

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