CIL Events
CIL builds understanding and community through an exchange of learning among diverse groups and individuals. See upcoming events below as well as past events for an idea of their breadth and quality.
2024 and 2025 Program Offerings
"Personal Narrative: Transforming Haunting Ghosts into Healing Guests"
with Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph. D.
Thursday, January 2, 2025
7:00pm to 9:00pm EST
Via Zoom
Rather than conceptualize the power of ghosts that haunt us, I offer a personal narrative of ghost energies that have shaped my life for decades. In the creation of this story, I discovered the single most central archetype that has given this ghostly presence its unlimited energy.
James Hollis's illuminating text, Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives (2013/2015), has been a major inspiration for these reflections. They led me to consider an alternative to dispelling our ghosts: inviting them in as guests. The shift from haunting ghosts to healing guests can offer a new story to live by, one that constructs our identity more fully and generously on our individuation pilgrimage.
Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D. has been teaching for over fifty years, from elementary special education teacher to secondary school students, and on to undergraduate and graduate students. He has taught at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture for ten years as well as the Fairhope Institute for Teachers for seven years in Fairhope, Alabama. He is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Pacifica Graduate Institute, a Fellow of the Dallas Institute and faculty member of The Jung Platform, directed by therapist Machiel Klerk. He has also taught student inmates in a major California prison using the thought of Joseph Campbell on personal myth.
Dr. Slattery is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 33 volumes, including seven volumes of poetry and one co-authored novel, as well as dozens of articles, podcasts and op-eds in newspapers and magazines. His most recent publications include The Way of Myth: Stories' Subtle Wisdom and The Fictions in Our Convictions: Essays on the Cultural Imagination.
Learn more about Dr. Slattery at his website:
https://www.dennispatrickslattery.com/bio
$17 - CIL members
$20 -Non members
Once you have registered, you will be sent a zoom link for this event via email.
Please note: registrants do not need a PayPal account to make payment for this workshop. You can enter your credit card information as usual and the payment will be deducted from your account. PayPal simply processes the payment.
"The Art of Faith, The Faith of Art"
with Christian Wiman
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
7:00pm to 9:00pm EST
Via Zoom
Using poems and prose, both his own and others', Christian Wiman will discuss what faith looks like in our times, and what an engagement with art has to do with that.
Christian Wiman is the author, editor, or translator of fourteen books, including Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair and My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer.
Of his work as a whole, Marilynne Robinson writes, "His poetry and scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world. This puts him at the very source of theology, and enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader's surprise and assent are one and the same."
Christian has been a Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford and a visiting assistant professor of English at Northwestern, and for three years he served as Visiting Scholar at Lynchburg College in Virginia. From 2003 until 2013 he was the editor of Poetry magazine, the premiere magazine for poetry in the English-speaking world. Christian is currently Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School.
$22 - CIL members
$25 - Non members
Once you have registered, you will be sent a zoom link for this event via email.
Please note: registrants do not need a PayPal account to make payment for this workshop. You can enter your credit card information as usual and the payment will be deducted from your account. PayPal simply processes the payment.
"Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul Retreat"
Westminster Presbyterian Church
1502 W 13th St, Wilmington, DE 19806
Saturday May 17
Retreat plus book signing - 3:00pm to 6:30pm
Sunday May 18
Worship Sermon - 9:30am to 10:30am
Dialogue with John Philip Newell - 10:40am to 12 noon
An Afternoon Retreat and Morning Conversation with John Philip Newell and Cami Twilling
In which the wisdom teachings of John Philip Newell and the spiritual practices of Cami Twilling call us to be aware of the sacredness of Earth and every human being as key to the way of transformation and healing in our lives and world.
This is a free in-person event. Donations are gladly accepted should you wish to support CIL.
The retreat focuses on the main themes of John Philip's award-winning book Sacred Earth Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World (HarperOne).
John Philip Newell is a 'wandering teacher' from Scotland in the ancient Celtic Christian tradition, drawing on both the poetic and the intellectual, and addressing the head as well as the heart. Cami Twilling is the director of Earth & Soul, a Celtic initiative of study, spiritual practice, and compassionate action based in Colorado.
Their much-loved combination of teaching and spiritual practice offers great hope for healing and transformation in our lives, both individually and together.
Learn more about John Philip and the Earth & Soul Retreats here.
The weekend retreat with John Philip Newell and Cami Twilling is free and open for all. However, if you would like to support the work of CIL for this event, your donation is welcome.
Past Events and Speakers
David Whyte
Noted Poet & Author.
“The Frontier of our Lives: Courageous Steps & Radical Simplifications” (2002)
View his website here.
Ysaye Barnwell
Ysaye Maria Barnwell is an American singer and composer. Barnwell was a member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock from 1979 to 2013.
Dr. James Finley
Student of Thomas Merton and clinical psychologist, Dr. James Finley teaches how connecting to our Divine indwelling can transcend fear and shame and awaken to our True Self. A faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation, he is the author of "Merton’s Palace of Nowhere" and "The Contemplative Heart", and the host of CAC’s podcast Turning to the Mystics.
Dr. Alan Fox
Alan Fox is an awarded Professor of Asian and Comparative Philosophy and Religion in the Philosophy Department at the University of Delaware.
Thomas Moore
Best-selling author, Therapist, Speaker
"Care of the Soul" and "A Religion of One's Own" (2014)
View his website here.
Christian Wiman
Noted Poet, translator, editor, and essayist. “Hammer Is Prayer” (2016)
View his website here.
Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault
Principal Teacher and Advisor to the Contemplative Society.
"The Wisdom Way of Knowing" (2006)
View her website here.
John Phillip Newel
John Philip Newell, PhD, is a Celtic teacher and author of spirituality who calls the modern world to reawaken to the sacredness of Earth and every human being.
View his website here.
Jeremy Taylor
Jeremy Taylor, sometimes called the “Johnny Appleseed of Dreamwork,” He was an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and had worked with dreams for over sixty years.
View his website here.
Carrie Newcomer
Carrie Newcomer is an American singer, songwriter and author. She has produced 19 solo CDs and has received numerous awards for her music and related charitable activities.
View her website here.
Dr. Marcus Borg
Leading historical Jesus scholar
"New Insights into the Nature of God" (2003
"God, Faith, Transformation: A New Way of Looking at our Religious Traditions" (2005),
"Being Christian in the 21st Century" (October 2012)
View his website here.
Sam Keen
Author and co-producer of an award winning PBS documentary, "Faces of the Enemy". His work was the subject of a PBS special "Your Mythic Journey with Sam Keen.
A Spirited Life in a Secular Age" (2011)
View his website here.
Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian, an Episcopal priest and an activist for gender justice and eco-justice. He has written 37 books including "Original Blessing". Fox is the founder of the University of Creation Spirituality in California.
View his website here.
Roger Housden
"Love Language: Writing Your Heart Out
Author, Speaker, Writing Guide"
View his website here.
Jim Wallis
Jim Wallis is the Director of Center on Faith and Justice and inaugural chair in Faith and Justice at the McCourt School of Public Policy.
View his website here.
Monica Wikman
Pregnant Darkness: Alchemy and the Rebirth of Consciousness was published by Nicolas-Hayes in 2005
View his website here.
Brian McLaren
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for "a new kind of Christianity"
View his website here.
Charles Eisenstein
Charles Eisenstein is the author of numerous essays and books, including "Sacred Economics", "Climate—A New Story", and "The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible".
View his website here.