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| Our Spiritual Directors |
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We are delighted to welcome four new directors to our team adding a rich diversity of human experience, faith tradition and ethnic background as well as depth of journey. Click on the links below to meet Bob Fernandez, Jane Rabin, Tom Morgan and Cathy Squires. Click here for a PDF to share.
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“The sacred duty of being an individual is to gradually learn
how to live so as to awaken the eternal within oneself.”
- John O’Donohue
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Lucie Chalifour is a layperson in the Catholic Church and has been a healthcare worker, a childbirth educator, and a doula. Lucie has a deep understanding of how the sacred rhythms of living and dying can mirror and be integrated within the journey of the heart and soul. She also serves as a facilitator for one day retreats or extended experiences for church-related and non-religious groups. Guided meditation and storytelling in facilitated groups are a way of inviting participants to open eyes to the extraordinary within the ordinary. Lucie offers direction for small groups as well as individuals. Appointments are available in Sacramento at Bread of Life as well as Woodland. She was formed as a director through the Bread of Life internship program. Lucie is mother to five grown children.
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| | | |  | And Lord, if I should entertain
The hope of really seeing you,
My suffering doubles with the strain
Of losing you, as I could do.
Living in fear, old and new pain,
In new and old hope, so I try
To reach death, for I cannot die. --St. John of the Cross | |
Robert H. Fernández (Bob) considers the two primary questions of the sacred human journey to be “Who is God for me? Who am I for God?” Spiritual Direction assists a person to be attentive to God’s leading and communication, to respond to God’s leading, to grow in intimacy with God, and to live out the implications of the growing relationship with God. He writes, “As a director, I will endeavor to walk with the person in her/his faith journey, to assist by pointing out possible insights to growth, and to stay out of the way of God’s activity. I am a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), having received my certification as a Spiritual Director from San Francisco Theological Seminary. I bring a wide range of faith experience and a rich spiritual journey into my practice, being attentive to the Christian tradition as well as to other faith traditions.” | |
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“Wisdom is the art of balancing the known with the unknown, the suffering with the joy; it is a way of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity . . . Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life, and the divine.”
- From Anam Cara by John O’Donohue
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Rena Grant accompanies people on faith journeys that range from awakening to a new spirituality, to alienation from their faith, to a maturing connection with God. The spirituality of aging is a particular focus. She also serves as a retreat leader using guided meditation, journaling, creative process, and dream work as tools for deepening. A Catholic layperson, Rena has found her home in Franciscan spirituality. She facilitates pilgrimages to Italy, practices and teaches meditation, engages contemplative living, and prays the scripture through lectio divina process. Rena offers spiritual direction in Martinez as well as at Bread of Life. She was formed through the spiritual direction program at Mercy Burlingame and recently completed their supervision intensive as well.
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“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love,
for they enkindle and melt the soul.”
- St Teresa of Avila
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Bill Kees is a spiritual companion who entered and completed the formation program for spiritual companionship at the Shalem Institute, in Bethesda, MD in 2004. Bill sought his own Spiritual Director when he was journeying through a time of transition in the early 90s. He discovered that his experience in spiritual direction was very helpful in noting how God was and is present in times of struggle, joy, confusion, and clarity. Bill understands spiritual direction to be a time of deep, prayerful listening to one who brings their sacred story at that particular time. The director is another set of eyes and ears to wonder about elements in the story that the directee may not notice. In prayerful attentiveness the director listens for the leading of God that encourages, supports and cares deeply for the person. He finds it helpful for each person to pay attention to practices that draw him/her. God is never absent. Practices assist us in noticing God's presence.
Some practices that Bill appreciates are breath prayer, Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Awareness Examen, Journaling, photography, prayer collage, labyrinth, exercise and music. Bill also participates with his wife in leading retreats that focus on experiencing God through the disciplines of prayer. In retirement Bill and his wife are living in Chico, near to his birth home, where they delight in being with family, a key element in his own spiritual growth over the years.
Bill serves as our initial contact for inquiries about spiritual direction. Email Bill to initiate the process.
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“God hugs you.
You are encircled
by the arms
of the mystery of God.”
Hildegard of Bingen
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Carolyn R. Kees, a Lutheran lay woman, formed and supervised spiritual directors for many years in the Chicago area before her retirement in 2006. A registered nurse for over 35 years, she focused on empowering people for informed self-care and integrating their faith and health. She also completed training as a presenter for the Enneagram, a personality typology often used in spiritual direction. Carolyn and her husband Bill now live in Chico, CA. where they delight in being closer to family, participating in prayer ministry (including weekly Centering Prayer), choir and Taize worship in their home congregation, and exploring ways to combine their gifts by providing retreats and workshops together. Carolyn offers spiritual direction and supervision of directors in Chico as well as at Bread of Life. She completed study for the Masters of Pastoral Studies in spiritual formation at Loyola University at Chicago and prepared for spiritual direction ministry at the Institute of Spiritual Companionship in Chicago, Illinois.
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"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."
- Stephen Covey
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Ron Lagerstrom is no longer accepting new directees. serves as a consultant, spiritual director, and retreat leader for Christian pastors and churches. His life is greatly enriched as he “comes alongside” others to encourage practices of spiritual growth and discernment in the ways of God. Celtic spirituality - celebrating a good God who makes a good creation and blesses our personhood as good – is a particular passion. A lifelong member of the Evangelical Covenant Church, Ron served as pastor in four parish churches during 50 years of ministry. He serves as a trainer and leader for the Companions in Christ small group program for local churches as well as a volunteer at Friendship Park, a homeless ministry in Sacramento. He offers spiritual direction out of his Davis home office as well as at Bread of Life. Ron completed a D.Min. in spiritual formation and direction through Fuller Theological Seminary and had intensive training in spiritual direction at Mercy Center in Burlingame.
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"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace." -Frederick Buechner |
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Sandra Lommasson is the founder and co-executive director of Bread of Life and a spiritual director. Her passion is creating processes and pathways for the formation of spiritual directors and leaders of religious and public organizations. Sandra also serves as a retreat leader and Contemplative Dialogue facilitator and mentor. She blogs regularly through www.quadratos.com on the 4-fold pattern of transformation in the gospel and in life. She has published several articles on spiritual direction and served on the Council of Spiritual Directors International from 1999-2005. She is mother to two grown children and delights in six very special grandchildren. She was formed as a spiritual director and then as a supervisor through Mercy Center, Burlingame.
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“…our work is to receive the gift of the sacred story from a directee, and to bear witness to all of the story's dimensions - the beauty, the pain, the sorrow, the joy.”
- Christine Valters Paintner
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Kathy Miranda brings diverse experience as a spiritual director and facilitator of groups, workshops and retreats. She served on the Bread of Life internship faculty in the Art of Spiritual Direction. Her particular love - the intersection of spirituality and creativity - is the focus of her M.A. in Transpersonal Studies. She offers bio-spiritual focusing, creative expression, dream work, and Enneagram integration as well as traditional methods of spiritual direction. As a group leader she integrates prayer and ritual, creative expression, and processes to deepen adult spirituality. She is honored to walk with others on their spiritual path and to witness the many ways God is at work in people's lives. She offers spiritual direction out of her Pleasanton home office as well as at Bread of Life. Kathy received her formation at Mercy Center, Burlingame.
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| |  | “God loves you just as you are and not as you should be.” -Brennan Manning
| | Tom Morgan currently provides spiritual direction in the Sacramento region and other nearby areas in Northern California. He has a special concern for those who are pastors and those who come from the evangelical faith tradition. Tom is an army veteran with a background in student affairs at several universities, and he has extensive experience living, working and ministering in an Asian-American context. Tom received his formal training as a spiritual director through Christian Formation & Direction Ministries (CFDM) in Los Angeles, CA.
In addition, he is a member of the pastoral staff at Xaris in Elk Grove, where he assists with the spiritual formation efforts of that church. He has been married to his wonderful wife, Lisa, since 1989 and is the proud father of a college-age daughter, Sarah. His family has lived in the Sacramento area since 2000.
| | | |  | And everything aspires, longs, yearns, according to a
pattern that is adorned with holiness and girded with beauty.
For this life of your is not a meaningless phenomenon. -Abraham Isaac Kook
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Jane Rabin has been practicing spiritual direction in Davis for over twelve years, working with individuals and small groups. She completed her training as a director at the Bread of Life internship program and as a supervisor for spiritual directors at the Burlingame Mercy Center. She was certified as a Jewish meditation teacher by Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley and has facilitated short contemplative retreats and taught meditation groups in the Davis/ Sacramento area for many years. She has also served as a chaplain at the UCD Medical Center. Jane loves working with people who wrestle with where God is in the traumatic places in their lives. She works with people of all traditions as well as with those who feel drawn to spirit but don’t find a spiritual connection in any particular tradition. She meets people both at Bread of Life and at her home office in Davis. | | | | |
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In our sleep, pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart
And in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
-Aeschylus
We choose to inhabit our days.
Dawna Markova
| | Cathy Squires is a UC, Berkeley and Holy Names University graduate in Psychology & Counseling Psychology. She was formed as a Spiritual Director through the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA. She spent her adult years with a focus on personal healing & spiritual growth as well as on Early Childhood Education & Early Childhood Mental Health. To her, children have a special way of opening our eyes to the extraordinary with the ordinary.
Personally rooted in Ignatian spirituality, she is well acquainted with other traditions, having grown up as a Chinese in India, Pakistan and Hong Kong. She is mother to four children (biological and adoptive) and grandmother to ten (living & departed.) She enjoys individual Spiritual Direction and has plans to develop a small urban retreat home for contemplative listening and retreat direction.
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