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Weekend Program for Working Adults

The Sophia Center's Weekend program enables working adults to attain a master's degree in two years while delving deeply into the converging wisdom traditions that are the source of a new creation story.

It covers the same themes as the nine-month residential program and is structured around four stimulating weekends per semester, as well as the Summer Institute.

The weekend program attracts people from throughout the country who pursue expanding knowledge and an advanced degree while meeting their on-going vocational and personal commitments.

The unique weekend format allow students to reflect upon and apply the curriculum to the context of their working lives.

Spring 2013 – Spirituality of Earth, Art and Spirit

January 25-27. Gaia and God: Ecology and Theology
Ecofeminism/Ecojustice: Alternative ways of thinking. Traditional Cosmologies in the West: Babylonian, Hebrew, Greek; The Christian Creation Story. Cosmological Resources from Asia. Modern Science and New Universe Story. Imagining an ecologically sustainable world; alternative energy and agricultural systems, Spirituality for ecojustice.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, PhD is theologian and historian. She is also on the faculty at Clermont school of Theology. Her publications include Gaia and God, Women and Redemption, Sexism and God-Talk and Women Healing Earth.

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February 22-24. Deep Transition Intensive for Evolutionary Catalysts
The workshop provides principles, processes, perspectives—and experiences—that together can powerfully empower and support you in your calling. Everything in the Deep Transition workshop is applicable for those engaged in sustainability, resilience and relocalization-related movements—e.g., Transition, Permaculture.

Lynette Hanthorn is Executive Director of Transition Colorado, founded and directed the Center for Creative Justice in Ames, Iowa for more than 20 years, and is an accomplished conflict transformation facilitator and energetic healing practitioner.

Michael Brownlee of Catalyst for Transition Colorado was trained as a journalist and served as a writer, producer, and communication consultant in the corporate arena for many years.

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March 22-24. Active Hope: The Work That Reconnects
To be in service to the healing of our world, we need to experience it afresh, as a living system in which all beings are connected. Interweaving silence and sound, interactive exercises and spiritual practices, the Work That Reconnects builds fearlessness, solidarity and creativity to face the challenges of our time and deepens our wellsprings of courage, creativity and active hope.

Joanna Macy, PhD is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with four decades of activism.

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April 19-21. Regenerative Design
This workshop will explore practical solutions for living in balance and Harmony with the natural world. Penny will share techniques on how to restore land while providing for our needs and the needs of our non-human neighbors. Earth: Learning out to both build healthy soil and build with the Earth Air: learn techniques of listening to the land and learning.

Penny Livingston-Stark has been teaching internationally and working professionally in the land management; regenerative design and permaculture development field for 25 years and is internationally recognized as a prominent permaculture teacher, designer and speaker.

Fall 2013: Cosmology and the Human Spirit

September 20 & 21. My Looking Ripens Things: Being a Catalyst for Healing Through Poem-Making
My question to myself and to you is this: What can you and I do to make a difference? I would like to work with you in this retreat on ways to bring poetry as healer into your personal life and make it a part of what you share in the world.  It’s time to realize, as Rilke says, “my looking ripens things.” This retreat will help you become a catalyst for poetry as healer in your world. 

John Fox is a certified poetry therapist and poet. He is the author of Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth, Creativity Through Poem-Making and Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. His work is featured in the PBS documentary, Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine. He offers workshops in a range of institutions throughout the United States and abroad.  He has taught regularly at Sophia since 2005.  

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October 18-20. Life Mapping
About finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life. You will create your own personal road map for living your life dream, with heart and meaning in alignment with your highest destiny and calling.

Ever wonder how you can stay true to your passions and contribute to the world during this time of great shifts? In this workshop you will create your personal map, and set goals. Clarity will emerge as each person charts their gifts, talents and passions, in this very creative way. You will discover where your contributions over lap with what the world needs now. You will be guided to create your own action plans for sustaining balance with your personal health, spiritual, emotional and financial well being. Decide concretely where you want your time, work and relationships to go as you create a life of deep meaning, fulfillment and contribution.You will learn some simple daily practices to follow your intuitions to re-connect to your heart's deepest yearnings. 

Elizabeth Murray, author, photographer, painter, garden designer is a voice who inspires and ignites a commitment to Beauty, Nature, Spirit and Sustainability. As a speaker and workshop leader, Elizabeth uses personal story, garden metaphors, warm humor to inspire the imagination of her audience to connect with what has heart and meaning, and to express their own creativity. Elizabeth's passion for Nature inspired her dedication to diverse projects around the world- from helping restore  Monet's Gardens in Giverny, France to remote African villages, to the Amazon rain forest. Her photographs have traveled with Monet's paintings to eight museums, and the New York Botanical Gardens and are published annually in calendars and her book Monet's Passion, Ideas, Inspiration and Insights into the Painter's Gardens. Look at her website for more information.

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November 15-17. Sacred Story and a New Economic Paradigm

Imagine an economy in which life is valued more than money and power resides with ordinary people who care about one another, their community, and their natural environment. It is possible. Millions of people are living it into being. Our common future hangs in the balance. The old economy of greed and dominion is dying. A new economy of life and partnership is struggling to be born. The outcome is ours to choose.

David Korten is the author, most recently, of Agenda for a New Economy and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. He is the founder of the Living Economies Forum and co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, an informal alliance of organizations and individuals collaborating to help frame a new, transformative economic vision. He is currently focused on engaging a public conversation about a new economic paradigm from our deep, foundational beliefs about our relationship with nature and with each other.

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December 6-7. Following Jesus: Quantum Spirit, Inclusive Spirituality

Let’s resurrect and reconsider Jesus: his story, his spirit, and what it might have meant to be called Christ and for ourselves to be identified as Christians. Let’s also consider this: are we really following Jesus? Or are we following the followers of the followers of Jesus, replicating archaic agendas that cannot be attributed to him? Come and see.

Miriam Therese Winter, a Medical Mission Sister, is professor of liturgy, worship and spirituality at Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut. She is the author of 15 books, including Paradoxology: Spirituality in a Quantum Universe. She is composer of 15 recordings, including the gold record album Joy Is Like the Rain. She has served the poor on three continents and is a popular speaker in the United States, Canada and Australia.