LIVE via Zoom
Saturday, August 15, 2026, 10:30 AM- 12:00 PM ET
and
Saturday, August 29, 2026, 10:30 AM- 12:00 PM ET
Interspiritual Dialogue: A Two-Part Public Lecture Series
— An OSLA Interspiritual Lecture Series & Info Session
for the Applied Spirituality Training Program (formerly Seminary / ISCC / Thanatology)
With Rev. Ali’a Edwards, Rev. Dr. Courtney Bryant, and Rev. Stewart Griffin
What does spiritual formation look like when it meets two often-pondered questions of a human life?
This August, One Spirit invites prospective students, friends, and members of our wider community to a two-part public lecture series exploring two enduring questions of spiritual life:
How do we discern a call? And what do we do when the spiritual path leads us through darkness rather than clarity?
These sessions offer an opportunity to experience One Spirit’s approach to interspiritual education through teaching, conversation, and lived experience. Members of our teaching staff will be joined by recent graduates to explore how the curriculum moves beyond theory and becomes a resource for navigating real-life questions, transitions, ministries, and spiritual challenges.
August 15 — How Do We Discern a Call?
Co-facilitated by Rev. Dr. Courtney Bryant
What do we mean when we say we are “called” to something? How do we distinguish vocation from desire for specialness and significance, urgency, expectation, fear, or fantasy?
This session explores discernment as a spiritual practice: learning to listen for what is asking to emerge through our lives and developing the capacity to respond with clarity, courage, and integrity. Faculty and recent graduates will reflect on how discernment is taught, practiced, and lived within the One Spirit formation experience.
August 29th — The Dark Night of the Soul: Torture, Transformation or Something Else?
Co-facilitated by Rev. Stewart Griffin
What happens when the practices, beliefs, identities, or certainties that once sustained us no longer seem to work?
The “dark night of the soul” has long described periods of spiritual disorientation, loss, unknowing, and profound transformation. This session considers what these experiences ask of us, and how spiritual formation can help us remain present when the path itself becomes uncertain.
Together with recent graduates, we’ll explore the dark night not simply as an idea from the spiritual traditions, but as a lived human experience with implications for ministry, spiritual companionship, and our own formation.
Come Experience the Classroom
These gatherings are both public lectures and opportunities to learn about One Spirit’s seminary experience. Alongside each teaching, recent graduates will share how their formation has shaped their ministries, relationships, spiritual practices, and ways of meeting the world.
About the Co-Facilitator,
Rev. Ali’a Edwards
Facilitating Dean, Interspiritual Foundations & One Spirit Interspiritual Seminary
Reverend Ali’a B. Edwards is a grateful and proud 2012 graduate of the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. She is overjoyed to be a ‘newbie’ Dean with the honor of holding sacred space for the incoming Class of 2024. She is the mother of one young adult son who is the brightest light and greatest teacher in her life.
Ali’a is a hospice chaplain in Northeast Louisiana and an airport chaplain in Atlanta. She is a humanist, an interspiritual minister, and a student and practitioner of Buddhism, cherishing her spiritual practices. Ali’a is curious, playful, and adventurous. She adores her family and friends.
Ali’a is an artist in love with life, determined to relish Life as it unfolds. In the powerful and multigenerational tradition of her matrilineal lineage, she is a praying woman. Ali’a is the writer and designer of several self-guided spiritual tools and journals. She is the spiritual leader of Rosewood Monastery, the contemplative respite and discernment enclave she founded in the Deep South.