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Mother Tessa Bielecki is co-foundress of the Spiritual Life Institute, a Carmelite community with retreat centers in Colorado and Ireland. She served as the Institute's first abbess for almost forty years. Actively involved in interfaith dialogue, she is the author of Teresa of Ávila: Ecstasy and Common Sense, Holy Daring, and Teresa of Ávila: Mystical Writings, and she is the publisher of Desert Call, a quarterly magazine of contemporary spirituality. She lives as a hermit and writer in the desert of Crestone, Colorado.
Laurence Freeman is a Benedictine monk and has been Director and spiritual guide of the World Community for Christian Meditiation since its formation in 1991. He has been the primary figure carrying on the work of John Main, the man who first revived the practice of meditation among Christians on a large scale in the twentieth century. Fr. Laurence facilitated the Way of Peace dialogue with the Dalai Lama, and has been active in interreligious dialogue in general. He is the author of numerous books and recordings, including Light Within, Selfless Self, Web of Silence, and Jesus: The Teacher Within. He teaches Christian meditation throughout the world.
Alan Jones has been Dean of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco since 1985. Rev. Jones was born and educated in England, and he has served as Director of Ascetical Theology at General Theological Seminary in New York, as Director of the Centre for Christian Spirituality, and as a staff member of the Trinity Institute of Wall Street’s Trinity Church. He is the author of many books, including Soul Making, The Desert Way of Spirituality, The Soul's Journey, and Reimagining Christianity: Reconnect Your Spirit without Disconnecting Your Mind. He teaches, preaches, and leads retreats throughout the world.
Lorraine Kisly has studied and worked with the texts of the great religious traditions for more than twenty years. She is editor-in-chief of the journal Parabola: The Search for Meaning. She is also the author of The Prayer of Fire: Experiencing the Lord's Prayer, and editor of the anthologies Christian Teachings on the Practice of Prayer: From the Early Church to the Present (previously titled Watch and Pray) and Ordinary Graces: Christian Teachings on the Interior Life.
Marvin Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. He is Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute, Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, and a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar. He is also the author or editor of numerous books, including The Ancient Mysteries, Ancient Christian Magic, The Magical Book of Mary and the Angels, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospels of Mary, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, Secret Gospels, Jesus Then and Now, and, with Willis Barnstone, The Gnostic Bible.
Brother David Steindl-Rast has been a Benedictine monk of Mount Savior Monastery in Elmira, New York, for more than fifty years. He began studying Zen in the 1960s, and he has been a pioneer in Buddhist-Christian and interfaith dialogue since that time. In 1975 he received the Martin Buber Award for his achievements in building bridges between religious traditions. His books include Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, A Listening Heart, The Music of Silence, The Ground We Share (with Robert Aitken), and Belonging to the Universe (with Fritjof Capra). His most recent book is Words of Common Sense for Mind, Body, and Soul.
Bishop Kallistos Ware is an emeritus fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and was Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies at Oxford University from 1966 until 2001. In 1982 he was consecrated titular Bishop of Diokleia, Greece, and appointed assistant bishop in the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain (under the Ecumenical Patriarchate). He is the co-translator, with Philip Sherrard and G. E. H. Palmer, of the Philokalia, and he is the author of numerous books, both academic and popular, including The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way. The first volume of his collected works has been published under the title The Inner Kingdom.
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