Welcome to my website!
I was raised as a Catholic, but I spent twenty years of my adult life practicing Buddhism (including being ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun) before returning to Catholicism in 2001. Subsequent to my return, I trained as a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition and then received training in retreat house ministry and joined the adjunct ministerial staff of St. Ignatius Retreat House in New York (sadly, now closed). I have continued to offer individual spiritual direction as well as giving retreats and other programs of spiritual formation in parishes and for other groups since my 2007 move to the Twin Cities.
I started blogging at Creo en Dios! in 2008. In 2012 Oxford University Press published my first non-legal book, Growing in Love and Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist Sources for Christian Meditation, and I have been spending a lot of time giving talks and other programs related to the book. I hope to complete two book manuscripts on which I have worked in recent years, one about my conversion from Catholicism to Buddhism and back to Catholicism, and the other on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
I have served a number of positions at the University of St. Thomas since arriving in the Twin Cities. Having left my position as Director of the Office for Spirituality at the University of St. Thomas and given up my status as a tenured professor in the law school, I now serve as Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of St. Thomas. I am also an adjunct instructor in Theology at St. Catherine’s University, teaching course for their Masters in Theology program, and Co-Director of a Contemplative Practices initiative at St, Catherine’s, funded by a Lilly grant. Academics love titles and I have a bunch of them; if you are interested in those or my various legal publications, you can check out my St. Thomas faculty web page.
If you want to learn more about my spirituality, check out Mystic Mag’s interview of me on their blog here.
What else can I tell you about me? I have a husband (Dave) and a married daughter (Elena) who completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in vocal performance last year and now lives with her husband close enough for us to see each other regularly. I love hiking, poetry, and cooking. I play the accordion (although “played” is perhaps more accurate).
Perhaps most important is this: my deepest desire is to fall each day ever more deeply in love with God, to live each moment out of the truth of my relationship with God, and to help others grow in their relationship with God. It is an incredibly great privilege to be able to engage in spiritual direction and retreat ministry.
Come along!
