Our Winter Series, January 15 through March 19, 2026
Our book for this series: Ecological Spirituality
……. how only a change of theology will heal us and the planet
By Diarmuid O’Murchu
Diarmuid O’Murchu is one of today’s leading contemporary anthropologists and theologians. In his recent book, Ecological Spirituality, he underlines our daily experience of a planet under pressure whose ecosystems are declining faster than at any point in 
human history and then makes the case that our current ecological crisis is essentially a spiritual crisis of values. The changes that we must make to address the complex ecological crises of today are unlikely to happen if we do not engage intentionally in spiritual evolution.
O’Murchu identifies the historical and theological assumptions of our western culture and helps us to see through them to a broader time scale of creation where all of reality is interrelated and valued … and energy (power) no longer works top-down but from the center outward.
He links the worldview from modern Western science (especially cosmology, quantum science, and evolutionary unfolding) with the sense of interconnection, of ‘oneness’ experienced by mystics throughout the ages to produce a powerful hybrid understanding, ‘Eco-spirituality,’ as a world-transforming resource.
O’Murchu’s approach is Christian-plus and often inter-spiritual – working with a sound understanding of contemporary science and Indigenous wisdom. Absorbing the offerings of each of the nine chapters should give enough heft to our understanding to set us on the path that Thomas Berry has prophetically called The New Story.
Ten Thursday mornings via Zoom — Series Tuition: $80
We invite you to register today
for this inspiring program.
Dates of Program: January 15 through March 19, 2026
Each Thursday morning – 10:00am – 11:30
How: Zoom Platform
Fee: $80.00 — The Thomas Heck Memorial Fund is available to those needing scholarship aid, and we encourage donations to the fund from those who are interested supporting our operating costs and each other.
Our work continues by virtue of many contributions.
Please select additional donation option below if your circumstances allow.
Click following button to pay fee & reserve your place today.
additional donation of any amount.
OR make a check made payable to WORD AND LIFE and mail it to:
Word and Life
c/o Joe Schneider
533 Tallant Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
WHEN MAILING CHECK: Please be sure to include a note with
your email address so we can email you your weekly Zoom links.
| DATE | TOPIC AND CHAPTER(S) | SPEAKER |
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Session 1: |
Introducing the community of Eco-Spirituality visionaries |
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Session 2: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 1: |
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Session 3: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 2: |
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Session 4: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 3: |
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Session 5: |
Overview of book with author, and |
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Session 6: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 6: |
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Session 7: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 5: |
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Session 8: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 7: |
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Session 9: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 8: |
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Session 10: |
Reflecting on and responding to Chapter 9: |
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BOOK FOR THIS STUDY SERIES…
Please order your book early so that you will have it before the series begins.
Click here to order from Chaucer’s Books in SB
Click here to order from Powell’s Books in Portland
Click here to order from Amazon
Backstory of the Winter Series:
2006 was the first time we read an O’Murchu book – Religion in Exile: A Spiritual Homecoming – in which he offered penetrating insights into the changing spiritual awareness of our time. He believed that we are rapidly out-growing the time-honored but exhausted vision of formal religion.
Looking back over the twenty years between our first meeting with Diarmuid’s wisdom and our upcoming weeks with his work, we find that 10 of those series were focused on books that explored his themes: “the re-birthing of God”, how the new Cosmology is transforming Spiritual life, the overlay of Sacred Earth to Sacred Soul, the Church of the Wild (to mention only four).
Word and Life’s Steering Committee listened deeply for guidance during those years, and it now becomes clear that this new paradigm has been persistently knocking at our door for two decades! In November when we shared the news of our upcoming book choice with Word and Life’s old friend, Msgr. Clem Connelly, he remarked that “ This is an emerging theology and critical for the moment.”
Today the stakes have never been higher. We need a deeper and more accurate understanding of the planet-deep crisis that we have brought upon ourselves. So, we’re especially grateful for this Winter series and its opportunity to follow again where Diarmuid’s vision continues to take us, believing that his serious and rigorous ideas can help strengthen us for the re-set required for a positive way forward.
List of Presenters (in order of date of presentation)
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Week One (Jan. 15, 2026) — Series introduction with Pat McClure
Pat has worked as an artist-scholar over a long career in teaching (including a Fulbright Scholarship year in New Zealand).
A second career emerged, using new research in creativity to establish an educational consultancy: The Human Curriculum – translating the capacities of human intelligence into teaching and learning strategies for California school districts. Within a short time, the work turned those discoveries into ‘conceptual blockbusting’ techniques to deal with stubborn community problems – earning her a MacArthur Award for creativity in the community.
Those years of experience led to training and work as a Spiritual Director leading courses and retreats in the sacred arts, spiritual development and Wisdom Christianity…
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Week Two (Jan. 22, 2026) — Speaker: Rev. Steve Jacobsen
Steve Jacobsen earned a BA in European History from UCSB, a Masters of Divinity from Princeton Seminary and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Seattle University. He served as a Presbyterian pastor for 30 years, with the last 16 in Goleta.
From 2008-2014 he was Executive Director at Hospice of Santa Barbara; from 2014 to May, 2018 he was Director at La Casa de Maria. He has published a book and 11 articles on the relationship of spirituality to various aspects of daily life, including secular work, leadership and digital technology.
He has been active in interfaith projects with Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist communities. Since “being “released into the wild” and retiring in 2018, he has served as an Interim Pastor, first at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian and now at Summerland Presbyterian. He writes a weekly blog, “Pocket Epiphanies” at www.drjsb.com
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Week Three (Jan 29, 2026) — Speaker: Rev. Scott Claassen
Scott Claassen is an American Episcopal priest and musician based in Santa Barbara, California. He completed his Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School. Having investigated the relationship between faith and the environment at Yale’s Forum for Religion and Ecology during his graduate studies, he was inspired to take a Carbon Sabbath. He would spend one year without flying or driving as well as eating a primarily plant-based diet and refraining from consumer demands like online shopping. During that period, Claassen bicycled over 11,500 miles around the United States to engage Christian communities of a variety of traditions in dialogue about climate change.
A lifelong multi-instrumentalist musician and songwriter, Claassen has penned hundreds of songs and appeared on dozens of records. Throughout his solo career he has released 8 studio albums and 3 EP’s. His songs have been featured in Grey’s Anatomy and in several films. His primary instruments are guitar, mandolin, and piano, but he also plays harmonica, banjo, charango, and a variety of other strings and keyboard instruments..
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Week Four (Feb. 5, 2026) — Speaker: Joseph Bruchac, PhD
A citizen of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation and a member of their Elder Council, Joseph Bruchac has authored over 180 books in numerous genres. His poems, fiction, and essays have appeared in hundreds of publications from American Poetry Review, Parabola, and National Geographic to Scholastic Scope and Highlights for Children. His ground-breaking book Keepers of the Earth (co-authored with Michael Caduto), which uses Native stories to teach science, has sold over a million copies an adopted in schools throughout the US and Canada.
A graduate of Cornell University, he received his Master’s Degree in Literature from Syracuse University and his Ph.D. from the Union Institute (Ohio). His numerous awards include a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, a CCLM Editors Fellowship, a NYS Writing Fellowship, the Hope S. Dean Memorial Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. A traditional Native musician and storyteller, he has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival and the British Storytelling Festival and performed traditional indigenous music with drum and flute at Caffe Lena, the Old Songs Festival, the Flurry Festival and numerous other venues..
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Week Five (Feb. 12, 2026) — Speaker: Rev. Diarmuid O’Murchu
Diarmuid O’Murchu, a member of the Sacred Heart Missionary Order and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, is a social psychologist and author. Most of his working life has been in social ministry, including as a couples’ counselor, in bereavement and AIDS-HIV counseling, and with homeless people and refugees on three continents.
Along with the volume we have chosen for this study series, Ecological Spirituality, his many books include: Ancestral Grace; Adult Faith; Ecological Spirituality; Evolutionary Faith; Incarnation; Religious Life in the Twenty-First Century; and When the Disciple Comes of Age (all from Orbis Books)..
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Week Six (Feb. 19, 2026) — Speaker: The Rev. Lauren Artress
The Rev. Lauren Artress is Canon Emerita of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and author of three books: Walking a Sacred Path, Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice, the Sacred Path Companion, and The Path of the Holy Fool. Her first book was instrumental in launching what is now known as the Labyrinth Movement.
Lauren went on to found the non-profit, Veriditas, the World-Wide Labyrinth Project in 1996 to “pepper the planet with labyrinths”. With over 6000 labyrinth sites in the US alone, her non-profit work embraces the vision to activate and transform the human spirit through the labyrinth experience. In the years since, she has received the Gandhi, King, and Ikeda Peace Award for her work in bringing people together in creative, peace-giving ways. In 2021 she received the Extraordinary Visionary Leader award from Women Creating Our Futures.
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Week Seven (Feb. 26, 2026) — Speaker: Roger Collis
Roger Collis lived at the Findhorn Community in 1971 in Northern Scotland and has retained a 50-year relationship with Findhorn and the Isle of Iona. He is a Findhorn trustee involved with governance, financial and spiritual issues that are facing the Community today.
Moving to the United States in 1974 he helped co-found the Lorian Association. He has worked with business and government in both public and private sectors, and continues to consult with communities and a variety of educational initiatives. He is passionate about building structures and systems that support the emergence of a new consciousness, one that embodies a positive vision of the future..
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Week Eight (Mar. 5, 2026) — Speaker: Fr. Jim Clarke, PhD
Fr. Jim Clarke Ph.D. is presently a consultant for the Spiritual and Human Formation for the Permanent Diaconate candidates and their wives for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He is also an Associate Spiritual Director at the Cardinal Manning House of Prayer for Priests. With a rich academic background in Theology, Depth Psychology, Counseling, Education, and Mythology, Fr. Clarke is the author of five books and two CD/DVD series. He is a popular Retreat Director and Conference speaker throughout the Southern California area and beyond..
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Week Nine (Mar. 12, 2026) — Speaker: Rev. Dr. Tim Burnette
Tim writes and teaches in philosophy, theology, cosmology, and decolonial mysticism. He earned his doctorate from Claremont School of Theology, where he studied process metaphysics and compassion. He has hosted the Theopoetics Podcast and currently curates the Way Collective, which is a contemplative community for love and liberation in Santa Barbara, CA. He is a partner, father, musician, athlete, and avid reader. He agrees with Kurt Vonnegut that you can see all kinds of things from the edge that you can’t see from the center. Although… sometimes it helps to be centered out on the edge as well.
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Week Ten (Mar. 19, 2026) — Speaker: Alice McDonald
Alice MacDonald has been a member and long-time Coordinator (retiring in 2008) of the Word and Life Community for 48 years. With a Master’s degree in Theology from Loyola Marymount University in LA, she was a founding member for the Institute for Adult Spirituality at the Franciscan Renewal Center at Mission Santa Barbara.
Her interest lies in the Contemplative practice of Silence as an experiential path bridging the traditional gap between God and the World, Spirit and Matter. Her formation and teaching have been shaped by the evolutionary spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin, Richard Rohr, Thomas Berry, and Cynthia Bourgeault among others.