Institute will explore personal, social transformation through creativity

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Lacey, Wash. – The annual Saint Martin’s College Spiritual Life Institute, June 21-25, offers this year’s participants an opportunity to reflect on the role of creativity and imagination in personal and social transformation. Registration for the ecumenical institute is now beginning and is open not only to those engaged in professional ministry, but also to students and individuals seeking personal enrichment and spiritual growth.

Now in its 22nd year, the institute is a theology program designed to focus on spirituality for today’s world. Each year, well-known theologians for social justice and peacemaking share their thoughts and experiences to inspire awareness and deepen the spiritual journey of participants.

This year’s institute bears the title, “Transforming Our Lives and Our World: Creativity, Poetic Vision and the Spiritual Journey Towards Peace and Justice.” Institute faculty members will be religion and poetry scholar Don Foran, named Washington’s professor of the year by the Carnegie Foundation in 1995; Jeanette Rodriquez, Ph.D., author and chairwoman of Seattle University’s department of theology and religious studies; and poet, author and teaching artist Margie Shaheed, whose works are extensively published in poetry journals and anthologies.

Each faculty member will deliver a free public lecture during the week of the institute. The lectures are at 7:30 p.m. at the college’s Worthington Conference Center, 5300 Pacific Ave. SE. The schedule is as follows:

June 22: “Soul Making: The Psycho-Spiritual Journey Towards Peace and Justice,” presented by Jeanette Rodriguez.

June 23: “The Redemptive Power of Poetry,” presented by Don Foran.

June 24: “Poetry: The Language of Peace and Personal Transformation,” presented by Margie Shaheed.

For more information about the institute or the evening lecture series, please contact 360-438-4527, email sli@stmartin.edu, or visit the college’s website at www.stmartin.edu/spiritual_life.

For mroe information:
Ken Butigan
Institute director
360-438-4527
sli@stmartin.edu

Deanna Partlow
Senior editor; media relations coordinator
360-438-4541
dpartlow@stmartin.edu