Rev. Sage Cole (she/her)
Hi! I’m the visionary leader of the Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative. Who am I? Well I’m a mom, a minister in the Swedenborgian Church of North America, and since the tumult of the pandemic, and profound shifts in my inner life, a mystic of sorts convinced that this work of being church, becoming a new church is NOT about going about business as usual but making room for real change and the birthing of new possibilities and collaborations.
While I have had good experiences serving in traditional parishes in urban and rural settings, as the first virtual minister for www.swedenborgiancommunity.org and as a hospice and hospital chaplain, I’ve come to believe that a new kind of space is needed. A new space where people gather, not around one particular theological belief system or one particular religious or spiritual practice, but for the purposes of loving each other as we are, learning and growing together and co-creating as we are called.
In the world today there is a lot of division. People with differing belief systems that find it impossible to communicate. Violence and conflict, isolation and displacement is common. While when it is going well a traditional church community can be a refuge of sorts, often this refuge doesn’t last. As individuals grow and change they can begin to feel mismatched with the beliefs or practices that had once been a comfort, leaving them further isolated from their faith.
My vision for the Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative is that it might connect individuals and communities in new ways, making room for us to engage with one another about the most important things from our diverse perspectives and experiences. The model of gathering (and life) I call Be Love, Be Honest, Be Useful will be the framework for how we show up together and I’m so excited for what new connections, learning and collaborations it might make possible.
Alex Gayheart (they/he)
Hello friend. Yes, friend. Even though we maybe haven’t met, and maybe never will, I’m the kind of person that just sees people I don’t know as friends I haven’t met yet. All people, and their stories, fascinate me, spark my curiosity, expand my mind, heart and spirit, and fill me with awe, empathy and love for all the amazing things humans can do, all the wildly different experiences they can have, all the infinite ways they can be. I firmly believe it is through conversations and relationships that not only are our lives enriched by receiving and honoring what others have to share, but we also come to see, understand and know ourselves more clearly and deeply in the process. From those sacred moments of truly connecting with others, we discover how we are much, much more alike than we are different, and the world becomes a little bit better, a little less scary, a little more cozy, and a lot more kind, caring and compassionate.
And that’s what made me say yes without hesitation to Sage when she asked me if I wanted to work with her and be a part of the Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative. Because it’s all about building relationships led by love, having honest conversations, uplifting the wisdom we all have to offer, and growing and working together to make a positive difference in the world. Making a difference, the value identified and consciously chosen as the guiding light I’ve been aiming to follow for the last 30 years.
I am the proud mother of three beautiful and brilliant adult children, an out later in life transmasculine non-binary human, a lover and must haver of cats and dogs no matter how many times I tell myself, “no more pets!”), a lifelong Midwesterner, a huge fan of casual hiking, amateur camping, leisurely kayaking on relatively tame flowing water (might actually be more accurate to say, “lazy river style floating in a kayak”), and communing with nature, plus public parks to do all that in, a retired School Administrator, a budding Barista, Digital Support person for The Rainbow Church (a virtual/in-person safe space for LGBTQ+ spiritual seekers and allies), and the Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative Executive Assistant.
Why Helen Keller?
Helen Keller was a wonderful, fleshy, inspired human being who helped to make clear to the world that ALL human beings, and all experiences of life, are of a worthy purpose. A not well known fact about Helen Keller is that she was a devotee of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and saw his vision of a New Church as an inner invitation to live a life of love, honesty and useful service to others. Helen was very conscious of her inner life, and was inspired in large part by her sense of being connected to a greater Source within. She was moved by her faith to lessen the suffering of others, to work to build a truly new world, the new heaven and new earth that her faith taught.
“By “church,” he [Swedenborg] did not mean an ecclesiastical organization, but a
spiritual fellowship of thoughtful men and women who spent their lives in service to
mankind. He called it a civilization that was to be born of healthy, universal religion—
goodwill, mutual understanding, service from each to all, regardless of dogma or ritual.”
We name our Collaborative for Helen Keller because we seek to learn from her example and witness.
Why Spiritual Life Collaborative?
This ministry is being born out of the denominational body that has been at work seeking to be the New Church that Swedenborg proclaimed and Helen sought to live. We emerge out of this effort with an interest in imaging new ways to be in community together, new ways to foster individual and collective growth, new ways to be the connecting point between the Source of Life we call the Divine or God and human community. We see the possibility of many diverse ways for this kind of deeper life to come into being! We choose the name Spiritual Life Collaborative as opposed to Church or Society to emphasize our vision of a network of collaborative uses that unite diverse individuals and groups across the globe. All those who seek to Be Love, Be Honest and Be Useful.
