About
Liza
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. Currently in addition to providing individual spiritual direction and writing, I am one of the founders of la Alianza de Trans Solicitantes de Asilo Minesterios (Trans Asylum Seekers Ministry Alliance) an interfaith network providing support to Trans Asylum Seekers.
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