Rev. Jalyn Isley —Sacred Refractions #7
Each month, Rev. Ava Schlesinger poses four questions and invites a community blessing as she turns the lens of curiosity toward One Spirit’s kaleidoscope of alumni. This evolving series celebrates the prism of lived experience and reflects the radiant, raw, and beautifully human expressions of sacred action and service.
Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.
This month’s Sacred Refractions spotlight centers on Rev. Jalyn Isley, a 2025 One Spirit graduate, human resources professional, writer, and emerging workplace chaplain.
Jalyn’s work lives at the intersection of faith, personal transformation, and practical wisdom. Her upcoming book, Good Fruit: The Spiritual Diet for Success, offers a grounded spiritual framework for living in alignment with one’s values, not as theory, but as practice.
To learn more, visit Jalyn’s Webiste: https://goodseedgroup.com
(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Jalyn’s Zoom interview.)
What first called you to One Spirit... and why then?
For years before finding One Spirit, Jalyn was on what she calls a “fruitless quest” to understand faith, culture, and belief systems beyond the boundaries of her Christian upbringing. Raised in church, she knew early on that the truths she was hearing were not exclusive to Christianity. She longed for more than conversation. What she really wanted was understanding.
That hunger showed up early. Jalyn describes herself, with a giggle, as “nosy, but studious,” someone who has always wanted to know what makes people believe what they believe, and how those beliefs shape the way they move through the world.
As a child, she was full of questions. At seven or eight years old, she was already challenging assumptions in church and wondering aloud whether the crucifixion was really the central point of Jesus’ teachings. The reactions she received were often defensive, even hostile. But instead of shutting down her curiosity, those experiences sharpened it.
She wanted to understand more deeply how other people made meaning. What shaped their beliefs. What sustained them.
She spent years following those questions on her own, reading widely, exploring different traditions, and trying to piece together a broader spiritual framework for herself. But over time she realized that curiosity alone could only take her so far. Without structure, without teachers, and without community, the search felt scattered.
Then, by chance, or maybe destiny, during a virtual networking conversation, someone mentioned One Spirit.
She applied thinking she would stay for one year, just long enough to gather the knowledge she was seeking. But instead, she found home.
While at One Spirit, “I felt like people were getting the highest version of me,” she says. “I felt free there.”
What began as curiosity became formation.
How did One Spirit shape your relationship to faith and identity?
By the time Jalyn entered seminary, she had stepped away from Christianity for a season. Some of her early experiences with faith had left her feeling constrained, and she needed distance. But her spiritual connection had never disappeared.
One Spirit gave her a way back, not by asking her to narrow her faith, but by widening it.
“For the first time in years, I called myself a Christian again,” she says.
But this return was different. It was no longer rooted in inheritance or certainty. It was rooted in choice, curiosity, and a much fuller understanding of what faith could hold.
At One Spirit, she encountered many ways of understanding God, spirit, and sacred practice. Instead of feeling pulled apart by that diversity, she felt strengthened by it. It gave her language for what she had already been sensing for years.
For Jalyn, God is simple. God is love.
In her upcoming book, she invites readers to try something radical: replace the word God with love, and the word love with God, and notice what shifts. For her, they are inseparable. God is the source of creativity, connection, emergence, and life itself.
That understanding now grounds both her ministry and her professional life. She sees her work in human resources as ministry too because, as she puts it, “your purpose is your ministry.”
Her next step is workplace chaplaincy, helping people align their careers with their deeper values, their purpose, and their sense of calling.
How did one of the hardest chapters of your life become part of what you now teach?
One of the strongest threads in Jalyn’s upcoming book is her redefinition of joy. Not as happiness, and not as ease, but as acceptance, balance, stability, and a spirit at rest even in difficult circumstances.
That understanding did not come from theory. It came through lived experience.
In her thirties, around the birth of her son, Jalyn’s life cracked open all at once. As she navigated a divorce, lost a six-figure job, and faced the uncertainty of starting over, she was also diagnosed with autism, a revelation that reframed much of what she understood about herself. For the first time, she found herself relying on government assistance.
It was a profound unraveling.
This was someone who had bought her first home at twenty-five, attended an Ivy League school, and built what looked like a successful life. She had been the person others pointed to as an example of success. And suddenly, the structure she had built her identity around was gone.
She found herself asking, Who am I now?
What followed was not immediate clarity, but a choice about how she wanted to respond.
“I had to decide how I was going to respond,” she says.
She speaks about receiving food stamps with striking honesty.
“At least I could eat,” she says. “And because I could eat, I could think.”
That time gave her something she had not had in a long while: space. Space to reflect, to regroup, and to ask what remained when so much had fallen away.
What remained was possibility.
She began writing. She entered One Spirit. She found community among other autistic professionals and became an advocate for people navigating similar challenges. She started learning new investment strategies and building a different kind of future.
What looked like collapse became a different kind of foundation.
“Now there’s meat behind the book,” she says. “It’s not just words anymore.”
The teachings she offers now are not ideas she studied from a distance. They are truths she has lived her way into.
How do you practice trust when life feels uncertain?
For Jalyn, faith is not an abstract idea. It is a practice, something lived and exercised every day. She describes it as both art and science.
At one point, wanting to understand faith more deeply, she spent weeks paying attention to all the ordinary ways she already trusted life: turning on a faucet and expecting water, going to sleep trusting the sun would rise.
These small acts became their own kind of spiritual training. She wanted to know what faith felt like in her body, so that when life got hard, her posture would already know where to go.
“My posture is faith, not fear,” she says.
But even with all that practice, the sharpest edge of trust right now is motherhood.
Her son is six. Like many parents, she carries the constant ache of wondering whether she is doing enough, giving enough, protecting enough.
“Parenthood will test every last morsel of faith you think you have,” she says, laughing.
But underneath the laughter is something tender and deeply true.
When fear rises, she reminds herself that energy is still energy. It can be poured into worry, or it can be poured into expectation. So she keeps returning it, again and again, to God. To love. To trust.
“God can do much more with it than I can.”
And maybe that is faithfulness. Not certainty, but practice. Returning. Releasing.
A Blessing from Rev. Jalyn Isley
The blessing that I want to share is...
“You are a gift to this world.
Somebody needs what you have to offer... and you need to give what you have to offer.
I am so excited to experience your gift, however that shows up in the world. I can't wait. I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to support it. I can't wait to encourage you. I can't wait to share it with as many people as possible.
So if you are on the edge, or if you're thinking, or if you're wondering whether or not you should do whatever, the answer is YES.
And if there isn't anyone else here to support or care…I do.
And I bless you with all the love, the courage, and grace you need to just take that next step.”
_______________________________
A note from Rev. Jalyn
I’m excited to share that my new book, Good Fruit: The Spiritual Diet for Success, is now available.
For professionals who value both faith and results, this practical guide helps readers cultivate spiritual habits that support success while enjoying life along the way.
Whether you’re reading solo, with a book club, or as part of a group discussion, get ready to laugh, cry, question, and explore new ways to grow Good Fruit.
_______________________________
A note from Rev. Ava
The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us.
If you are a graduate or student of One Spirit Seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light and you would like to share your story, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me at beautyandgraceink@gmail.com so we can discuss featuring you in a future Sacred Refractions.
Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation. A collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.
