Michael’s book is “Let’s Talk About Death (over Dinner)” published by Hachette/Da Capo and several other imprints around the world. It offers a practical, inspiring guide to life’s most difficult yet important conversation. A TEDMed speaker, his writings have appeared in USA Today, GQ, Food and Wine, among other pubications.

He is the Founder of Death Over Dinner, a global movement that has inspired over 1 million people to sit down and talk about mortality. He is also the Founder of EOL.community, the largest and most comprehensive end of life planning community on the globe.

He has worked closely with thought/cultural leaders and many foundations/institutions including: The World Economic Forum, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, X Prize Foundation, FEED Foundation, Architecture for Humanity, the Summits Series and The Nature Conservancy.

Sadhviji is a renowned spiritual leader in India. She has lived at Parmarth Niketan in Rishikesh, at the foothills of the Himalayas for 25 years, where she gives spiritual discourses, satsang and meditation, and leads a myriad of humanitarian programs.

Sadhviji is Secretary-General of Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, the world’s first alliance of religious leaders for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, launched by UNICEF in 2013. She is President of Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education and empowerment to women and children. She is also Director of the world-famous International Yoga Festival.

Additionally, Sadhviji has numerous high-level international appointments, including as Vice-Chair of the United Nations’ Advisory Council on Religion. She sits on the Steering Committees of the international Partnership for Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) and the World Bank’s Moral Imperative to End Extreme Poverty. Sadhviji is a regular speaker at the United Nations, Parliament of Religions and other large international fora.

Mark Kutolowski is an Oblate of Saint Benedict and a Centering Prayer instructor who is committed to supporting the revitalization of Christian contemplation among lay practitioners. Mark is a wilderness guide who attended Dartmouth College and later taught survival/bushcraft skills there for about 15 years. He has a special interest in the relationship between contemplative practice and the natural world. Mark is also an instructor in the Russian martial art and health practice Systema and continues to study and explore ways to integrate the body into prayer. Mark and his wife Lisa are the co-directors of Metanoia of Vermont, a lay contemplative homestead and ministry that seeks to ‘nurture the way of Christ through work and prayer in relationship with the land.’

Mark will offer one Zoom and related day-long workshops exploring the relationship of the human body to contemplative practice on February 10 (Zoom)/February 26 (in person).

A keynote speaker and author, Mark Greene writes and consults on relational practices, diversity/inclusion, and masculinity for organizations worldwide. His book, The Little #MeToo Book for Men, has been called “a blueprint for men’s liberation.”

As Senior Editor for the Good Men Project, Mark has spent over a decade deconstructing binary-riddled dialogues around manhood and masculinity. He is uniquely positioned to help men, individually and in organizations, create a healthier, more connecting vision of masculine culture and identity. Mark has written and spoken on masculinity for media outlets around the globe, including Salon, Shriver Report, Huffington Post, HLN, BBC, the Guardian, and the New York Times.

Mark is offering a three-part series of conversations, beginning with a close examination of the research of dominance-based cultures of masculinity, which he will co-host with Mark Grayson via Zoom and in person on Oct 24. Greene and Grayson will follow-up this discussion with a men-only workshop on Saturday,

Nov 20, creating a space where men of all ages can share how Man Box culture impacts their lives and explore how men might choose to make different choices. On Apr 7, Mark Greene and his life partner, couple and family therapist, Dr. Saliha Bava, will then lead a discussion on how to grow children’s relational intelligence (relationship super powers) and provide useful tools for parents.

A brilliant young man and gifted retreat leader, Matthew was nurtured in the Christian contemplative Wisdom tradition by Cynthia Bourgeault herself. He presides as priest-in-charge for St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, NY, writes frequently for Contemplative Journal, and teaches for Northeast Wisdom and The Contemplative Society. He lives alongside the monks of Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY.

His primary interest is Wisdom: not knowing more, but knowing more deeply, fundamentally by the Way of the Heart. Matthew teaches that the heart not only the seat of emotions, but the primary organ of spiritual perception. He works to cultivate this mode of seeing. His contemplative practice is also informed by the Mevlevi Order of Sufism through the teachings of Camille and Kabir Helminski.

He is leading a series of conversations about heart-centered contemplative practice as we understand it from the Desert Mothers and Fathers, along with the relevance of their wisdom for our lives in today’s world. These seminars will offer a lively mix of lecture, group discussion, and guided contemplative practice. The dates for the three sessions in this series are September 26 (Zoom only), January 9 (Zoom only), and May 13-14 (Zoom and in person).

Raphaël Liogier is a professor at Sciences Po Aix (Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence), visiting scholar at Colombia University, and the author of numerous books. His research focuses on identity, religious identities, collective identities, identity reactions including populism, and how people deal with identity by excluding the identity of others.

French philosopher, sociologist, and highly-respected public intellectual in Western Europe, Raphaël wrote his PhD dissertation critiquing Western Europe’s “fantasy” misappropriation of Buddhism. From 2006 – 2014 he ran the first European Social Sciences Research Center where he studied the rise of the new Salafism (new Islamic fundamentalism) among young western Muslims. (He was the first expert that the French Parliament interviewed after the Charlie Hebdo attack.) He has also published Heart of Maleness, an incisive deconstruction of masculinity and the need to stretch into the possibilities inherent in modernity.

Saliha Bava, Ph.D., a Couples and Family Therapist, is an Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Mercy College. She teaches systems thinking, relational and collaborative-dialogic practices.

For 20+ years, she has consulted, designed, and implemented performative/play-based and dialogic processes within organizational, community, family, learning, and research systems. She is an advisor at the Taos Institute’s Ph.D. Program and M.Sc. Relational Leading Program. She is a board member of the International Certificate Program in Collaborative-Dialogic Practices and served on the American Family Therapy Academy Board. She has published and presented internationally on collaborative and performative perspectives, leadership, trauma, cross-cultural relationships, digital life, research, and teaching/learning. Her research is focused on cultivating practices for engaging emergence through play.

Harry Schmitz, a longtime contemplative practitioner, is a clinical psychologist with a practice in New York. During his professional career, Harry has focused on the integration of psychology and spirituality. His work is grounded in the belief that there is no place that Spirit (spirit) is not.

Harry has studied and practiced ancient and current traditions of prayer and contemplation since his college days, including classical and monastic forms of Lectio Divina, Eastern Orthodox practices, Ignatian and Franciscan spirituality, Centering Prayer, Welcoming Prayer, and other

Christian wisdom traditions. Since college he has gone on annual weeklong silent retreats at Trappist and Benedictine monasteries. In 2019 he completed the full Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola in a 30-day silent retreat. The purpose of these exercises is to help faith become more fully alive in daily practice by developing an intimate friendship with God.

Harry is actively connected with many of Trinity’s spiritual, educational, and liturgical ministries. He leads two weekly Trinity Meditation Room sessions, and offers programs in Cinema Divina, Ars Divina, Música Divina, spiritual journaling, and contemplative nature walks.

Professionally, he headed his own international consulting firm providing psychologically based services to Fortune 500 companies and other organizations. Services included employee and executive wellness and stress management programs focused on meditation and mindfulness practices. He used these same practices in working with emergency responders and others at Ground Zero following the events of September 11, 2001.

As a former university professor, he taught undergraduate and graduate students at The City University of New York and doctoral candidates at Fordham University. In his spare time, Harry enjoys nature, gardening, hiking, and meditating in the Aspetuck and other nature preserves wherever he finds them.

May 19, 1946 – September 21, 2021

In Memoriam

Sheila Traub was an extraordinarily active member of Trinity Parish who led the adult education team for over a decade. Sheila created the Art & Soul at Trinity Church, organizing countless trips both near and far, each themed to address an aspect of Christian teaching having done so for over a decade. She arranged several weekend retreats to Holy Cross Monastery on the banks of the Hudson River and led a dozen Trinity parishioners to Salisbury Cathedral to audit a Master’s-level course in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College.

Sheila’s passion for meeting the needs of older populations, the homeless and those for whom food insecurity an issue was tireless. At Trinity, she was a weekly presence at Saint Luke’s-Saint Paul’s Food Pantry in Bridgeport. In New York, she was active board member and treasurer of Health Advocates for Older People, Inc. where she was involved in the planning and construction of a 19-story assisted living facility on Second Avenue. She was founding Chairman of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

Religion and her church was central to her life. Morning Prayer was an essential practice for Sheila. Throughout Covid-19, she worked to establish virtual laity-led Morning Prayer on weekdays at Trinity. She twice served as one of Trinity’s two voting delegates to the annual ECCT Diocesan Convention. She was a rising second-year student in the Education for Ministry program. At the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC she served for several years as a Stephen Minister.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson