Parker J. Palmer is an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He completed his undergraduate work at Carleton College and earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley (1970). He served for fifteen years as senior associate at the American Association of Higher Education and is the founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal. In 1998, a national survey of 10,000 educators named Palmer one of the 30 “most influential senior leaders” in higher education. In 2010, he received the William Rainey Harper Award and in 2011, Utne Reader named him one of twenty-five “People Who are Changing the World.” He has published a dozen poems, more than one hundred essays and eight books.

In this short video, Spiritual Directors International member Tara Owens interviews Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who is the founding director at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Rohr is widely known for his expertise and outspokenness on the themes of Scripture as liberation, the integration of action and contemplation, community building, peace and justice issues, male spirituality, the Enneagram, and eco-spirituality.