Amy
Spiritual director & Coach
Contemplative Practitioner
"I offer guidance, mentoring, soul empowerment, and skilled listening to those who wish to evolve at a deeper human and soul level."
Professional Experience
Spiritual Director/Coach/Founder: Persimmon Studio, 2012 and continuing
Associate Pastor of Pastoral Care and Faith Formation, Manchester Church of the Brethren, 2020 and continuing
Has held pastoral roles at three progressive and consciously awake congregations
Director of Student Development, Bethany Theological Seminary, 2003-2018
Children’s Librarian, Constantine Township Library, 1994-2001
Pastoral Intern, 1989-1990, Iglesia de los Hermanos de Rio Prieto, Puerto Rico
Brethren Volunteer Service, live-in year commitment 1987/88, Beaman Home shelter for families experiencing domestic violence
Education
Doctor of Ministry, Columbia Theological Seminary 2012: Christian Spirituality
Masters of Divinity, Bethany Theological Seminary 1993: Pastoral Care focus
BS Psychology, Manchester (College) University 1986
PCC professional level coach with International Coaching Federation 2020-2023
Mindfulness Wellness Somatic Certified Coach, Mindfulness Coaching School ( July 2020)
Reiki II Practitioner, Advanced Reiki Technique Practitioner
Amy lives and works in North Manchester, Indiana. Amy's worldview is strong and broad enough to carry love and respect for the religious traditions & the amazing human capacity her clients bring, while open enough to include the very stars and mystery we were born into.
Amy believes the Sacred is on the move in all ways, and that this movement is about the ongoing unfolding of the soul and creation.
We learn from sacred texts, from the persimmon tree, from the ocean wave, from the complex emotions that bind us so that we can let them loose.
Amy’s spiritual direction and spirituality gifts come from a lifelong engagement with healthy, loving, congregations, and her own wide and widening spiritual exploration. These contexts have taught her about the Sacred, and the sacred that is within each person.
Amy's coaching style and toolbox comes from 125 hours of coaching training. This enhances many active years in direct engagement with folk in the pews, the streets, in life, and on the margins. She has an instinct to intuit solutions and pathways, puzzling life together into a shining way forward. With spiritual direction we add a good bit of the spiritual and work in the dimensions of mystery in tangible and changeable ways.
toward the sacred living of the human experience
But really who is Amy? In her own words: “I have been working at my personal formation for a long time. I used to think in categories of formation like vocation, marriage, spirituality, lifestyle. At the point that I saw myself as a holistic human being, a tiny but integral part to the whole cosmos, it all came together for me. My guiding principal is Love: heart, mind, soul, body...Sacred, Neighbor & Self. Where has this taken me? Into amazing waters of oceanic proportions. I do not think or feel or understand as I once did. I am unafraid to look directly at what is going on with my own dynamics that hold me back. And I go about the process of discover.align.design.integrate every single day. I love it. I mature into wisdom day by day. My life has moved from being a cushion of wounded victimization to a playground with the inner equipment for learning about my strengths and superpowers. Sometimes I still get thrown off the merry-go-round. With each fall and rising I am better at my vocation (job+passion), relationships, body love, neighbor love. My work has led me toward a lifestyle of sustainability, inspiration, generosity. I LOVE love love this.
"I go about the process of
discover.align.design.integrate
every single day."
What I will bring to YOU, is all my love, my confidence, intuitive tools, a soft spoken nudge, the tone of a pushy broad, a ton of compassion and always ALWAYS non-judgment. I bring a keen sense of wonder of the Sacredness of all things, and can comfortably move in your own language of faith and divinity, or of the full possibility of the human enterprise. And you will go places. YOUR places. You will be the discoverer and the determiner. I will be at your side, guiding and directing, listening and urging you forward. We will not only jump-start your well-being, but you have the opportunity to hurtle over things that you thought would always be in your way.
Amy offers support, belief, joy, encouragement, love and push. Amy will not let you live in lies of "not enough" or mired in fraud syndrome. She will see the truth of you, and remind you of it. We will get to more than...And it will be spectacular.
